Dell : Possible plans to enter mining sector

[Kprawn]

http://www.coindesk.com/dell-bitcoin-aligns-brand-innovation/

And I quote : "Possibilities ahead
 
While Walsh gave the impression that Dell is primarily focused on bitcoin as a payments play, the company may be uniquely positioned to exploit other potential market opportunities in the space.
 
For example, Dell has a professional Data Center Solutions team currently working on cloud computing and optimizing hyperscale data centers, tools that could no doubt position Dell to enter or serve the now booming industrial bitcoin mining space.
 
Still, while Dell could have an evident competitive advantage in the space, Walsh suggested the idea is not currently on the company’s radar, saying:
 

“We’re familiar with [bitcoin mining]. It’s not something we’re looking at at this time, but we are familiar with it.”
 
Notably, Dell recently decided to shelve plans to build additional data centers in Europe, choosing instead to focus on data center management."

What are your views on big companies entering the mining section of crypto currencies? If they decide to create data centres targeted at mining, this would increase competition, in a field dominated by one or two companies currently.

If they decide to develop mining hardware and give support to existing data centres, it would have it's own advantages and disadvantages.

Do we need huge companies to enter this section? {Would this increase the possibilities of centralization and also the 51% attack?}

Share your views and opinions on this here, please. 

[ljudotina]

It's the future of BTC mining, wether you want it or not. Entry level is getting higher and higher every day, it's harder and harder to get ASIC's for avarage joe and break even on top of that. In not so distant future, only large entities will mine BTC with profit....that's one place where BTC's idea of decentralization failed horribly.

[Nagle]

Dell has a professional Data Center Solutions team currently working on cloud computing and optimizing hyperscale data centers, tools that could no doubt position Dell to enter or serve the "now booming industrial bitcoin mining space."

That's completely irrelevant. Bitcoin mining is completely different from data center operation. In Bitcoin mining, there's very little data traffic, either within the data center or to the outside world. All those key-testers have nothing to communicate except when they're being loaded or when they get a hit. Real data center operation is dominated by network issues.

Also, in Bitcoin mining, the hardware is profitable for maybe 6 months.

[DrG]

Dell has a professional Data Center Solutions team currently working on cloud computing and optimizing hyperscale data centers, tools that could no doubt position Dell to enter or serve the "now booming industrial bitcoin mining space."

That's completely irrelevant. Bitcoin mining is completely different from data center operation. In Bitcoin mining, there's very little data traffic, either within the data center or to the outside world. All those key-testers have nothing to communicate except when they're being loaded or when they get a hit. Real data center operation is dominated by network issues.

Also, in Bitcoin mining, the hardware is profitable for maybe 6 months.

Yes but Dell has
-long term contracts with foundries and the clout to get mass runs of something like a new 20nm design
-cheap Texas power
- a household name.  Imagine how easy it would be for Dell to sell a million cheap miners on eBay just from the Dell name. Throw in some stupid Ashton Kutcher ad and it's a done deal (would help decentralization though).

[jjc326]

I think you're talking about Dell selling mining equipment right?  You're not talking about Dell actually mining itself?  I could see bigger players getting into the mining equipment game. The actual mining game, I think should only be done by individuals - if businesses started doing it you just know it is only a matter of time until some entity like Microsoft gets 51 percent. 

[DrG]

I think you're talking about Dell selling mining equipment right?  You're not talking about Dell actually mining itself?  I could see bigger players getting into the mining equipment game. The actual mining game, I think should only be done by individuals - if businesses started doing it you just know it is only a matter of time until some entity like Microsoft gets 51 percent. 

I envision Dell would have both cloud mining and mining hardware for sale.  The could have their cloud pool process transactions and run supernodes and you could get an XPS ASIC 

I'm sure some businesses would trust them a payment processor even for receiving BTC and converting to fiat.

[ajareselde]

It's the future of BTC mining, wether you want it or not. Entry level is getting higher and higher every day, it's harder and harder to get ASIC's for avarage joe and break even on top of that. In not so distant future, only large entities will mine BTC with profit....that's one place where BTC's idea of decentralization failed horribly.

Thats what im saying for a long time now. Ever since ASICs hit the mining field, bitcoin core idea is broken.
Now mining has evolved to pure industry mining, with little or no place for average Joe to mine something other than worthless alts.

[jjc326]

It's the future of BTC mining, wether you want it or not. Entry level is getting higher and higher every day, it's harder and harder to get ASIC's for avarage joe and break even on top of that. In not so distant future, only large entities will mine BTC with profit....that's one place where BTC's idea of decentralization failed horribly.

Thats what im saying for a long time now. Ever since ASICs hit the mining field, bitcoin core idea is broken.
Now mining has evolved to pure industry mining, with little or no place for average Joe to mine something other than worthless alts.

Yes I agree with you.  MY impression was always that Bitcoinw as developed as a way to let everyone, even the little guy, have a piece of the pie.  Once the price of BTC got high enough, of course, industry followed and now most people are priced out of buying a legit piece of hardware to seriously mine.  It is a flaw, no doubt.  I think scrypt tried to fix that but aren't there even ASICs that work on scrypt now coming out?  Is there no way to keep the "little guy" in the game? (I mean with some other type of alt coin)

[DrG]

It's the future of BTC mining, wether you want it or not. Entry level is getting higher and higher every day, it's harder and harder to get ASIC's for avarage joe and break even on top of that. In not so distant future, only large entities will mine BTC with profit....that's one place where BTC's idea of decentralization failed horribly.

Thats what im saying for a long time now. Ever since ASICs hit the mining field, bitcoin core idea is broken.
Now mining has evolved to pure industry mining, with little or no place for average Joe to mine something other than worthless alts.

Yes I agree with you.  MY impression was always that Bitcoinw as developed as a way to let everyone, even the little guy, have a piece of the pie.  Once the price of BTC got high enough, of course, industry followed and now most people are priced out of buying a legit piece of hardware to seriously mine.  It is a flaw, no doubt.  I think scrypt tried to fix that but aren't there even ASICs that work on scrypt now coming out?  Is there no way to keep the "little guy" in the game? (I mean with some other type of alt coin)

When the possible risk of losing money comes into play for the manufacturers that's when the litle guy would be able to eek out a profit.  Right now it's too easy for the manufacturers to make them, "test" them for a month and ship them (Bitmain possibly being an exception to the rule).

[alh]

I would be stunned if DELL had ever manufactured an ASIC. They BUY lots of ASICs, but I can't imagine that they have any actual engineers to design, layout, or fabricate an ASIC. I would also be surprised if they have any clue about what ASIC process is "current" besides what it costs to purchase 10,000 of some widget designed and built by somebody else.

[Somekindabitcoin]

Imagine 14nm technology : )

[DrG]

I would be stunned if DELL had ever manufactured an ASIC. They BUY lots of ASICs, but I can't imagine that they have any actual engineers to design, layout, or fabricate an ASIC. I would also be surprised if they have any clue about what ASIC process is "current" besides what it costs to purchase 10,000 of some widget designed and built by somebody else.

You've got to be trolling.  While Dell may not actually build anything themselves pretty much all their equipment is an custom order from Taiwan more or less since they do large batch runs of each board specific to each model of PC.  They can go through 50K PCBs in a month - BFL can't even get their Monarch PCB designed correctly after 20 attempts because they skimped on copper.

Dell would just have to have a foundry subcontract a chip run and getting an ASIC designed for Dell would happen a lot faster than somebody like BFL or Cointerra.

[alh]

Actually I m not trolling. I am sure dell designs, spec's and buys a ton of PCB boards. The ASIC's that they place on those PC boards are almost certainly made by some other company. I guess it's possible that Dell gave an ASIC design firm specs and had something built for them, it's way more likely that it's already a part that's in production, and sold to a variety of companies besides Dell. Dell could clearly pick an existing mining ASIC and then design everything else around it, but the ASIC itself will almost certainly have been designed and fabricated by something else.

ASIC design and fabrication is a very specialized business and usually requires a much bigger engineering investment than Dell is willing to make, IMHO.

[Kprawn]

I do not think they will go into the "knitty gritty" of mining. They would rather concentrate on providing support on data centers and providing hardware solution for Scrypt  miners. 

But if they do, some of the bigger companies / pools would get some healthy competition. 

[ruggedman_dan]

Whether they choose to enter the mining arena or not, it is very safe to say that they have the resources to dominate the current competition.

[smoothie]

lol if Dell starts mining Bitcoin...they won't tell anyone in the public.

Their smoke screen statement of "it isn't on our radar" is bullshit.

[Kprawn]

With so many miners and big pools at the moment, very little scope remains for big business to enter the ring and have ROI within a year of 2 of their initial capital investment. But with any new "project" their will in most cases, be huge losses in the first two years anyways.

But to be a dominating factor, the investment will have to be huge.

I sometimes wonder if big companies, should not develop their own, Alt coin for eCommerce within their business. {Imagine a DellCoin or MacCoin etc}

[DrG]

The budget for all the ASIC companies that have seen the light of day so far has been in the millions.  I'm sure KNC's total budget for the original Jupiter/Saturn development was less than $50 million.  Large US companies regularly do upgrade contracts with Dell for $50-$100 million.

Where there is $ and even the slightest interest there is a way.  Dell has the financial means to get into the scene.  The question is what would be in it for them and as smoothie noted if they jumped in they would stay hush.

[cloverme]

I'm not sure Dell would start mining bitcoin at this stage, but who knows, maybe an alt-coin during their burn in process for servers/workstations.

[BIGbangTheory]

I think most of the money that can be made in crypto related mining has already been made. Dell may have profited somewhat when GPU mining was profitable from probably increased sales in gaming related machines.