In an effort to increase investments in new technology solutions that will help foster customer innovation and drive business results, Dell (News - Alert) recently announced its plans to invest $ 1 billion in the current fiscal year to deliver leading solutions, services and cloud-based delivery options.

“Technology advances, delivery methods and the move to disruptive IT models like cloud are changing the fundamental way businesses operate,” said Steve Schuckenbrock, president of Dell Services, in a statement. “With this transformational shift, businesses are gaining benefits in terms of speed to market and organizational and compute flexibility.”

Schuckenbrock said that Dell is mobilizing to help customers capture these benefits and make the power of cloud computing accessible to more organizations and users. Dell has made and will continue to make significant investments to deliver technology that helps customers thrive in the Virtual Era, according to Dell officials.

Over the next 24 months, the company will build multiple highly efficient cloud data centers around the world to provide its customers access to public and private cloud technologies and its world-class IT outsourcing capabilities.

These new data centers will allow customers to take advantage of infrastructure- and virtual desktop-as-a-Service offerings as well as IT outsourcing.

Company officials pointed out that Dell will open 12 Global Solution Centers this year and is planning 10 more over the next 18 months, to better bring open, capable and affordable solutions to organizations around the world.

This global network of solution centers will provide a backdrop for customers to learn about Dell’s industry-focused solutions and domain expertise.

Dell also launched new Next Generation Data center, End-User Computing and Email Archiving solutions that enable efficiency and innovation from the core to the edge.

In other cloud computing news, NaviSite (News - Alert) achieved the Cisco Advanced Managed Services Certification, which recognizes the company’s initial investment in the ITIL processes, practices and tools necessary to provide high-quality managed services.

"This achievement represents an important milestone in the development and roll out of our cloud-based services," said R. Brooks Borcherding, president and CEO of NaviSite earlier this month.