Last week, Dell made its second acquisition of a remote management services company in less than six months. After buying into the remote server management business with its acquisition of SilverBack Technologies in June, Dell expanded its remote management capabilities to encompass the desktop and mobile devices with last week’s acquisition of Everdream.

(A recent THINKstrategies whitepaper sponsored by Everdream gives some indication of how Dell will leverage the Everdream acquisition.)

Both transactions are a part of Dell’s larger strategy to expand its product and service portfolio with a variety of automated solutions. The biggest of Dell’s recent acquisitions with this goal in mind was its EqualLogic purchase for $1.4 billion in cash, which will give Dell automated iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions optimized for virtualization environments.

While the EqualLogic acquisition dwarfs the SilverBack and Everdream buys, and has garnered far more press attention, the latter two have generated plenty of concern among channel organizations. I think there are even broader implications.

Both SilverBack and Everdream are former managed service providers (MSPs) who shifted away from providing direct services to end-user organizations in favor of offering automated remote IT management capabilities to resellers and other aspiring MSPs. Both also recognized the virtues of a multi-tenant, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model to deliver their services.

While they were both making some headway in their efforts to build a channel program, neither was blowing the doors down because they both faced an uphill battle educating channel companies about the benefits of managed services and helping them transform their businesses to capitalize on this opportunity.

SilverBack was one of the first enabling technology companies in the managed services market to recognize this challenge and established a ‘franchise’ strategy to help its partners with their business needs. Everdream was in the midst of developing a similar channel education and support program when Dell made its move.

Some VARs are suspicious that Dell may be building a direct support capability at the same time that it is trying to expand its channels to market to jumpstart its recent slump in sales. Dell has made a point of stating that the SilverBack and Everdream acquisitions are aimed at enhancing its channel strategy.

Dell claims that SilverBack and Everdream will help channel partners deliver a new level of remote management services, i.e. managed services, which can better position them in a world where product differentiation is fading, particularly among mid-size businesses.

Although I tend to agree with Dell’s view that the SilverBack and Everdream functionalities can strengthen channel companies’ service delivery capabilities and tighten their bond with their customers, I think Dell has broader ambitions with these acquisitions.

The company has acknowledged that it must also strengthen its position among large-scale enterprise customers where it plans to continue to sell direct, and it also must automate its support capabilities for small businesses to remain profitable. During a briefing with Dell and Everdream representatives, they pointed out that the Everdream and SilverBack functionality can scale up to meet the needs of enterprise customers, and down to support small businesses as well. But, these representatives stopped short of revealing Dell’s service strategies aimed at these two segments of the market.

While I think Dell has a sincere interest in making a new generation of automated, remote management services available to its channel partners, don’t be surprised to also see a set of direct remote management services from Dell aimed at large enterprises and small businesses in the near future.

You should also consider Dell’s latest acquisition as an important endorsement of SaaS aimed at the IT management environment which will be copied by other major hardware and software vendors.