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I don't totally understand what they mean, the press-release-style article isn't very specific. But:

> Customers will now be able to use Dell’s hardware based on their consumption, as a service… For the consumption programs, customers pay for the amount of storage or computing power they use.

That part sounds different than an ordinary lease, yes? I'm not totally sure I understand what it is though... the hardware on-premise at the customer for their exclusive use? But somehow it's usage is metered?

Doesn't a lease mean that you take custody of the goods and return them at the end? IIUC this is much more like a service akin to cloud offerings. Who pays the power bill for the server(s) subscribed to? Is the subscription one-for-one with serial numbers? Or if you deactivate the server and activate it again later could you get a different one?

Maybe they'll do small volumes with subscriptions though? Now a smaller business may be able to rent/lease <$5k worth of hardware where in the past discounts were given for big data center orders?