Finally resolved the issue with help from Dell technical support.  I was trying to install the OM package from a vmfs volume and it doesn't like that.  I copied the package to /root and all was good!
I have 3 R710 servers, all running ESX 4.1.  I have been doing a ton of reading trying to determine how to manage these servers using Open Manage and am not coming up with much. My latest attempt was the following: -  download [URL] copy up to ESX server, and extract -  cd linux\supportscripts\ and run  ./srvadmin-install.sh --express  -  this fails because libsmbios  and a few other modules are not found   Any suggestions or help would be very much appreciated!   Thanks in advance,Bill 
How to manage R710 running ESX 4.1?