Did VMWare save EMC? Looking back at the last decade, the acquisition that stands out is that of VMWare by EMC. An acquisition so important that I suggest that it saved EMC. Did EMC need saving? At the point it bought VMWare probably not but if EMC had not bought VMWare, I suspect it would have been in dire straights or at least not the company it is today. I’d go as far as to propose that it would have been bought itself by now.
Acquiring VMWare changed EMC from a storage company into a company which wants to be a lot more; it brought ambition and ideas into EMC. VMWare opened EMC eyes’ to a new way of thinking for it; it has driven more innovation into EMC than any other acquisition. Without the experience that VMWare brought into it, I doubt that EMC would be trying as hard to innovate in Cloud Computing; they’d just be another ‘me too’.
So what will the defining acquisition of the next decade be? And will it be made by a storage company? Or will be by someone acquiring a storage company? Actually I’m going to make a bold prediction, it’ll involve Cisco but I’m not sure whether Cisco will be the purchaser or the purchased. There’s something to think about and no-one will remember if I was wrong anyway.
It does seem to have energized an “Old Iron” player into a “Bold Iron” entity, hasn't it? For an organization that was quietly consuming numerous smaller players (many of which languished following acquisition) it truly would have been bold to predict this outcome during the time of this transaction. In fact, someone should look back and identify which talking heads were on it and who sold EMC short with this deal.
Exciting times for anyone who puts EMC logos in their data center or on their marketing materials.
It does seem to have energized an “Old Iron” player into a “Bold Iron” entity, hasn't it? For an organization that was quietly consuming numerous smaller players (many of which languished following acquisition) it truly would have been bold to predict this outcome during the time of this transaction. In fact, someone should look back and identify which talking heads were on it and who sold EMC short with this deal.
Exciting times for anyone who puts EMC logos in their data center or on their marketing materials.