The news that Michael Dell is back the helm at Dell following the departure of chief executive Kevin Rollins has understandably triggered a good deal of speculation about the company’s direction.

The direct-sales specialist has been having something of a rough ride of late. Its core PC business is constantly struggling with price erosion and falling margins, so the key question is whether the server side of Dell’s business can generate new revenue streams to offset those poor returns.

The online business model clearly plays to Dell’s strength as a fast, high-volume assembler of standard units, but it is not a model that is traditionally associated with selling servers to business users. In nearly all cases, servers are sold either direct to major customers, or indirect through systems integrators (SIs), resellers and other channel outlets. Also, the servers sold are customised for the niche market applications that channel vendors tend to cater for.

Dell has traditionally fought shy of the channel, but it can be argued that SIs and resellers now represent one of its better opportunities to develop a new approach to the marketplace. Crucially, the channel is likely to become far more significant as the interface to end-users if the anticipated move to software as a service (SaaS) starts to pick up pace.

With SaaS, users acquire access to a business service that lies at the next level up from mere applications. Many of those services will be available from specialists in the channel. This is not too different from the way many customers already buy bespoke applications or complete turnkey solutions from specialist vendors now. Except that they won’t buy them, they will pay for the services to be provided online.

Companies like NetSuite and Salesforce.com have already demonstrated that this model works well. Software vendors like Progress are busy spreading the SaaS word among their channel partners. Even Microsoft wants a piece of the action.

The big issue here for channel partners is that they face the possibility of having to host the services themselves, or team up with a third-party hosting service. In both cases, low-cost, standard servers are likely to be needed by the truck-load, which suits Dell down to the ground.

The “standard” configuration should also include the specific web services and systems management software needed to run such installations – just the sort of pre-loaded packaging operation that Dell has already perfected elsewhere. All in all, SaaS represents the best bet for Dell in the enterprise market for ages.