Maybe something like Dell VXBlock didn't exist when they pitched their idea?
Any hardware contracts are very long term and you'll have a hard time getting me to switch to a different vendor, especially when they also want to come in with an unknown operating system which I have to run.
When my company looked into it VXBlock looked less like fully integrated hardware and software and more like a smattering of pre-selected components wired into a box ready to go with VMWare with a support contract. If you're already in deep with VMWare they're probably great. But the software side made my head spin. It looks like Oxide is a better fit for orgs that are more IaC.
I guess time will tell VXBlock just looks like amalgamation of SKUs Dell has. Oxide was built as "clean slate" from firmware to every minute detail to offer a compelling product for companies that want to have a hyperscaler style systems for their on-prem workloads.
Is it now bad to have a few offerings that you can tailor to your needs?
With compute one size doesn't fit all, maybe you need more disk space or maybe you need GPUs... I'm sure Oxide will come out with different spec modules over time.
The idea is similar: It's a rack which runs virtualized workloads and you don't have to think much about individual machines.
Any hardware contracts are very long term and you'll have a hard time getting me to switch to a different vendor, especially when they also want to come in with an unknown operating system which I have to run.