When it comes to friend or foe in the channel, feelings about Dell among solution providers have always been mixed. Now Dell has now set its sights firmly on the cloud with the acquisition of Boomi, a provider of a middleware service in the cloud that connects disparate applications.

On the one hand, it’s another signal that Dell intends to compete with solution providers in the cloud. But the fact is that every major vendor to one degree or another is trying to bypass their partners. And to its credit, Dell has come a long way in the channel over the last several years.

And while it’s true that Dell will probably launch its own set of cloud computing services in 2011, the company is making it easier for partners to launch their own cloud computing services based on Dell platform. For example, Dell has partnered with both Microsoft on Azure and Canonical on Ubuntu Linux to create cloud computing platforms.  In addition, Dell has rolled out a Virtual Integrated System (VIS) platform that integrates the management of server, storage and networking resources in a data center.

Dell over the years has also added a number of managed services to its portfolio, including the Everdream services for managing desktops and the managed services platform it gained when it acquired Silverback Technologies.

Obviously, Dell has brought all the elements of its cloud computing platform and services into play just yet. But it’s pretty evident that the company plans to play a big role in both the public and private cloud.

Paulette Almaier, vice president and general manager for Dell SMB solutions, says Dell will have a lot more to say about cloud computing in 2011. For the channel, watching when Dell plans to come to market is significant because it usually signals when a class of technologies are about to go mainstream.

Of course, that also means there will be significant pressure on cloud computing pricing as Dell moves to expand the available supply of cloud computing capacity. And the impact that will have on margins in general and the profitability of cloud computing providers in the cloud as a whole is likely to be substantial.