Dell culture was always the worst. They have proven to be cut throat since Day One merger day. So glad to be gone from there.
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EMC before merger had $7.7bln in cash , -$2bln debts and value of ...$65bln
Dell before merger had -$22bln on their books.
So clearly EMC was better off - and had engine for innovation (free cash flow) as well as number of software technologies .
So what happened ? First of all Di-k Egan (founder of EMC) died and Joe Tucci felt this is a moment to cash out as investors activist (I.H) started to ask for company breakup (EMC was federation of Vmware , Documentum , Data Domain , EMC core , RSA ..) .
That let Joe to pause all investments and clear R&D books to show "super high revenue/margin" with very very low costs of R&D.
That's 2014 when things slow down ... and it's not until 2018 when R&D gets reinvested and not for another 3-4 years until you get new products.
DellTech has potencial , install base , all it needs to succeed but market is shifting to 'cloud' and even so Dell makes great money in cloud ( PE servers , storage ) for top cloud provider - it looses control of end-customer DC. This is now seen to stop as cloud is not anymore 'cheaper' than any of the APEX offerings today
End of the story is - DellTech has potencial but it was EMC folks that drove and delivered and it's time Dell MGMT realizes that once again that navigating enterprise markets isn't 'web based' as even cloud providers learnt. It's all about trust and that is build over people. Fundamental law of physics don't change here - investing into what can get CIO fired isn't going to be walk in the park and EMC knew that where Dell is lerning it.
Servers been commodity for ages , storage was crown jewel of modern data cernter ..but that is changing as well
I don't think taking shots at each other is going to help. The reality is that the dell and emc customer were not the same. The only synergy that exisited was dell had pe servers and emc had storage software. The go to market strategy and structure of the two companies was vastly different. Going to a partner first strategy makes no sense for customers, it just adds an additional layer which means additional costs being passed down to customers. It's going to fail, but not because of dell vs emc, but because it is a push for greed, which hurts customers.
Hilarious thread. All the emc folk were miserable when dell merged. They hated each other and would slit a colleagues throat to get ahead. They saw dell happy employees and for a second wanted that world ... But mgmt for emc was kept and dell mgmt was shot... So guess whose culture is winning now? Emc dragging us into their misery
@1iac+1o1NatPw Is right about channel partner perspective. I worked for EMC and Dell and now a partner. There’s hope in Dell’s news but the reality is we heard this before and nothing changed. Nobody is actually expecting Dell to change. Even in markets Dell can’t seem to work with more than 2 or 3 partners in any given district. Those on the outside of that 2-3 are expecting any benefits of the channel first program to go almost exclusively to the same 2-3 partners.
Dell will not benefit from this strategy without expanding the partners a district works with. It’ll fail and direct business will be back in 18 months because those partners can’t proactively staff fast enough to support the new accounts and the entire partner eco-system will have their low expectations proven right.
If Dell at an AE level can’t proactively account map with more partners this entire project will fail. My fear for my friends still there is then there will be more cuts.
EMC was a strong innovative software company that had a great portfolio of products, relationships and strategic direction. Dell builds sh---y laptops and PCs.
If EMC had taken over it wouldn't be a sh-t show. Dell swallowed EMC, sold off the most lucrative parts, got busted for defrauding investors out of billions.
I worked at Dell for 17 years on the Direct side as well as in the Channel and Distribution. I now work for a reseller. At one time, I was a Dell customer.
Dell sales never sold on value, discounting the commodity client and server products at every quarter end. EMC sellers ONLY sold on value. You knew you were going to pay more for EMC, but it was worth it.
Dell never developed a storage product. First they bought EqualLogic, then they bought Compellent, then they bought EMC.
Each of those were Channel driven, and with the acquisition, Dell suddenly had a channel it didn't know what to do with. Dell actively competed with Channel partners, and that doesn't create any loyalty with the channel. That tradition continues today, and I have no confidence that the Partner First move will change any of that. The truth is, that program has been in place for at least two quarters, and what's really changing is the compensation for the storage teams to incent them to stop competing with the reseller community.
In CRN, Dell made clear they are only going to engage on the storage piece. Well the partners may be excited about the news, the fact that they will still need to arm wrestle for the rest of the data center and the endpoint business isn't going to drive the loyalty Dell will need for this to be successful.
When it comes to the Channel, you can't have your cake and keep it, too.
both Dell & EMC are stuck in their old ways, and a lack of vision and execution to transform the GTM
See that really is the problem. The people who made decisions at EMC and Dell were people with limited viewpoint, these were practical , make-quick-money kind of peope who were unable to understand the long term repercussions of their decisions. That was the ultimate reason for the EMC demise. Additionally, the quality of the workforce both at EMC and Dell is generally low - that is, those were people who are not open minded, who were incapable to reason and find solutions on more abstract level, who were not eager to experiment, learning new things and explore the canon-breaking ideas.
The current status quo is the end result of decades of decision making of such caliber. To put simply - the management at both EMC and Dell was not made from the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Both Dell and EMC were fine. Then Dell EMC together were also doing well. The market share and sales figures over the last 6 years speaks for itself. It's better than the competition. The problem is the market is shifting to XaaS, both Dell & EMC are stuck in their old ways, and a lack of vision and execution to transform the GTM. All the ingredients were there to build a Public Cloud (Virtustream, Pivotal, VMware, SecureWorks, Boomi, Dell, EMC). Each siloes and BU only looked after their own interest. If only there was a good chef, he/she would have cooked up a great feast with those ingredients. It ended up being a dog's breakfast. Now Partner first for storage, but are the partners Dell first in what they sell? or they switch to Pure, Netapp, AWS, Azure the minute the customer ask to compare? The business literally done a full circle to go from Dell business model to EMC business model in 7 years (In 2016, EMC lost market share 14 quarters in a row). The market have completely shifted, and no longer focus on expensive storage. Dell strategy is now to de-focus 70% of revenue generating product that was Legacy Dell as commodity online business, but focus on the dinosaur storage business that once made the EMC name proud. The definition of cloud is literally a cluster of compute servers. Instead of competing Cloud with cloud, Dell is competing with storage on a lease. If the ELT actually worked on the frontline for a quarter, they would know the strategies over the last 4+ years are disconnected from the market. Middle management keeping good ideas and honest feedback flowing uphill. Netscape, AOL, Yahoo, Napster, Blockbuster, Kodak, Palm, Minolta, all market leaders at one point with near-miss ideas to transform the business, but poor management decide to keep doing what they once proud off instead.
@@kxz+1o1NatPw
Well said. Anyone who thinks Dell was a superior company to EMC never worked with real talent.
I’ve had recruiters and hiring managers tell me they like I was at EMC before Dell. It’s simple, EMC had higher calibre people.
EMC service was the worst!! Having worked for customers of EMC the only reason one CIO kept buying those drawers of junk was because the EMC sales guy got him drunk regularly and bought the dude a pr-------e. No joke.
Those of us who actually had to work with the EMC cr-p were happy when CIO left to go work for EMC and we shifted to Dell Compellent and NetApp as fast as we could and never looked back.
Dell had the best support for their servers before the Dell and EMC acquisition. If I had a bad drive I could just order myself a replacement. Never could do that with EMC…
Ha! Anyone thinking VMware would be of any value to Dell today for future business had no understanding of technology tends and where it is going.
@kxz+1o1NatPw they were going so well that they got bought out by a smaller company?
EMC was 1000 times the company Dell could ever be. We were a proud team with an excellent market posture. Best service in the industry, and our customers loved us and our products. The dogs breakfast that is Dell will never be anything like EMC. My 6 years at EMC were a career highlight.
And no, I haven’t been made redundant. I’m still in the boat, heading straight toward the iceberg. For now.
A greedier, self serving clown than MD does not exist on the planet. Joe Tucci was head and shoulders above him.
Dell was fine, EMC was fine, and even Dell EMC was fine. Agreeing with others that what ki-led it was going public again, greed, and lack of real leadership.
No leader gave an actual rat’s a-s about properly integrating teams and led to a ton of redundancy. Leaders were only focused on whatever financial shenanigans they could pull to give themselves a big bonus, even if it meant hurting customers, employees, and communities. I hope those golden executive parachutes are fireproof enough to last in he-l.
Dell was great before EMC. I'm sure EMC was just fine before Dell. What did Dell in was going public. Period, end of story. You can thank the likes of Silver Lake and BlackRock. This was a money grab, pure and simple. Chuck helped to orchestrate that money grab and then ducked out while everything was ablaze. Second biggest mistake was selling off VMware.
Dell's acquisition of EMC for $67 billion was for VMware. Then spun-off VMware, generating $9 billion in cash, which was utilized to support Dell's poor financial position. Afterward, Michael Dell retains a 41% ownership stake in VMware.
Broadcom's buys of VMware for $61 billion. Michael Dell will retain his 41% ownership in VMware and gain a seat on the board of directors at Broadcom. These transactions imply that Dell acquired EMC for $67 billion, then spun-off of VMware to effectively lead to a debt reduction of $9 billion, and subsequently, VMware was sold. As a result, Dell Inc. will be left with a substantial amount of debt, while Michael Dell successfully orchestrated the deal to safeguard his own financial interests.
Now, Dell is left to manage a very low margin business possibly heading into to a recession. If anyone remembers Fry's or Circuit City or Enron then those left on Survivor Island might consider creating a plan B.
LOL... He pretty much ruined EMC. I spent 12 years there and this integration has been nothing but a downward ride. I worked with real leaders that had visions and didn't get consumed in politics...just the customer. I watched non-performers get walked out quickly. I didn't deal with piles of people doing the same redundant non-revenue producing functions. I could easily access a VP when middle-management couldn't find their ba--s...and they helped. And I surely didn't work at a place that would spend $99 to sell a $100 widget.
Lmao whoever said emc was in shambles before the merger losing market share to netapp is an id--t. I worked for emc for years and have now been at dell post merger for years as well. Netapp has always been a nothing burger .... talking to customers every day, maybe 1/200 has netapp. They're only slightly gaining relevance now. Literally every positive aspect of emc has gotten worse with the merger ... employee morale, garbage. Work-life balance, meaningless now with massive layoffs twice a year nobody's sleeping at night .. support, we're a laughing stock in the industry. Cost, consistently higher than literally all of our competitors. But guess what? Things will get better ... it's in the "roadmap" like every other godda-n thing at dell that never actually happens
EMC is the $65 billion albatross hanging on Dell's neck. Bad enough to be fighting compute workloads moving to the cloud, now without VMware, Dell is stuck slinging overpriced enterprise storage that customers can't wait to get away from to buy Pure, HPE, and so on if they do buy storage at all. But who cares, let's keep around a bunch of useless AEs and storage overlays continually losing market share and cut the roles selling PowerEdge, who actually lead the industry in sales.
@fts+1o1NatPw Nah bruhhh. EMC was in shambles losing market share to NetApp, Pure, etc. prior to the acquisition. The acquisition rejuvenated both companies, but that's worn off now and Dell is finding itself in the same pickle that EMC was in back in 2016.
LOL he ruined emc.
thank god he did