Dell next week is expected to unveil products that the company believes is just what small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need to make IT more efficient.

The computer maker, which is in the midst of an 18-month restructuring headed by founder and chief executive Michael Dell, told InformationWeek Thursday it would introduce servers and storage products that together help make virtualization easier to deploy in IT systems.

Virtualization is the use of technology to run multiple operating systems in a single server to power different applications. The technique helps consolidate more applications running on separate machines on to one server, which means using less space, and driving more software on less power.

While declining to provide technical details, Glenn Keels, senior manager for commercial product marketing, said Dell would show a new SAN array optimized for virtualization for SMBs, which Dell defines as having between 100 and 1,000 employees. While many large corporations are already implementing virtualization technology in their data centers, smaller firms have been less inclined to do so.

A SAN, or storage area network, is a group of interconnected disks that provide centralized storage for multiple servers. In Dell's view, a SAN is one of three key components in a virtualized environment. The other two are servers and interconnects.

Other products that Dell plans to show off at the San Francisco event on Monday, which will be hosted by founder Dell, is a two-socket, 2U server that has virtualization software ready to run applications. "Turn it on right out of the box," Keels said. Such a server could be used for running Microsoft's Exchange e-mail server, or Web and custom applications.

For 18 months before Dell returned as CEO, the company lost market share to rivals, particular its chief competitor Hewlett-Packard. Part of the company's comeback is convincing customers that it can help them reduce the cost of IT, and simplify management and deployment of computers from the data center to the office worker's desktop.

"Starting next week you'll start seeing products reflect this maniacal focus on simplifying IT," Keels said.

In addition, the company is also broadening the assessment and deployment services it offers to businesses. In the coming months, Dell plans to roll out consistent services globally, Keels said. For example, Dell currently might offer deployment services in one country, but not pair it with assessment services.

Dell has made some progress in its restructuring, but experts say it's too early to say how successful the company will be. Last month, Dell reported $733 million in profit in the fiscal second quarter on $14.8 billion in revenue. Most of the progress was due to higher sales of enterprise products, and favorable market trends that included higher average selling prices and lower component costs.

Read the original from InformationWeek here.