EMC, HP blockbuster 'merger' shocker comes a cropper EMC has been holding secret merger talks with HP that have since stalled, according to industry sources. The negotiations are said to have lasted almost 12 months, during which Dell executives mulled buying parts of EMC. But at the heart of the discussion was a proposed $132bn merger of the storage giant and HP, according to …
Maybe, but VMware is Soooo 2012. UCS and Hyper-V is amazing and UCS with OpenStack is getting even more amazing.
VMware is so spread out that just shrinking their product line to what is useful would be a major problem and Cisco couldn't manage a software company like this.
EMC products are really just aging and collecting dust. They were interesting back when reliability cost a lot. But their performance is poor and they're just not so impressive anymore. Cisco doesn't need them and invicta already is looking MUCH better. Why would Cisco want to burden themselves with 10 year old rusty SAN tech? A 4U disk drawer with 40 10gig disks for near line is all they need to make invicta rock.
"Cisco doesn't need them and invicta already is looking MUCH better"
No lover of EMC especially after their subterfuge around XtremIO upgrades, but Invicta ! that would be the half baked storage startup that Cisco bought and are now having to stop shipping due to quality issues ?
Does the IT industry keep wanting to create these huge monopolistic suppliers. It can only end in tears for the consumers.
Does no one remember the behaviours of IBM worldwide back in the sixties and seventies. Yes, up sprang DEC, SUN, Compaq, Sequent and others, but where are they now.
Yes, they remember perfectly well, particularly the BIG FAT HUMUNGOUS MARGINS from that time.
As for where are they now - you seem to have forgotten that what were investors in the previous era are now speculators (a polite word for gamblers turning the economy into a get-rich-quick scheme) and none of them give a rat's arse about the longevity of the company (or the consumers), only how much money they can extract before they bleed the company dry, (or the next market crash).
Share your concern @Otto. The effect of HP and EMC merging would only narrow customer choice, particularly in the SAN space.
And an Oracle takeover may pose an interesting "rationalisation" in the virtual machine space.
I have no enthusiasm for these M&A shenanigans, but then I'm not a shareholder.
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The last time somebody made a prediction like that, it was Larry Ellison talking about the ERP and CRM markets.
And when the markets stubbornly refused to follow his prediction, he made it happen with a series of acquisitions.
So... precedent?
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HP management can't think about growing by using internal technical talent, they can only think about aquisition and merger - because that's how their rewards are calculated. As many have said in the past, appropriate wiring on Bill n Dave's graves could generate much power. Anon for obvious.
Well HP is the only major vendor showing growth in storage, but yes of course you're correct it must surely have been the redundancies at HP that caused EMC and Netapp to lose market share.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/08/idc_tracks_storage_market_downwards/
If you're hp or Dell, then VMware could actually be a problem as it upsets your other virtualization partners (M$ and RedHat), and the storage side of EMC alone might not generate enough addition as opposed to overlap for hp. CISCO might have no qualms about VMware given they are highly reliant on it for their UCS offering, and their is almost no storage overlap for them, and it fills a big hole in their lineup. Personally, I think Larry still has too much control at Oracle and too much invested in Pillar to make an Oracle-EMC merger likely, though Hurd is probably already sharpening his axe at the thought.
But what about some other players? I can't see IBM being ignored by EMC. Could a smaller player like Lenovo or Fujitsu afford it?
Interesting times....
Cisco just made a huge product refresh and it's all about Hyper-V, System Center and OpenStack.
Cisco doesn't even make new drivers build for UCS VMFEX on VMware anymore.
I don't think we'll see any love there. Besides EMC doesn't do anything Cisco can't do better with storage.
Cisco is actually quite big in the Openstack field and uses Inktank on RHEL for storage as it is, so they don't necessarily need VMware at all. They are also ensuring the latest generation of products has full Hyper-V interop as well.
I am more expecting a Red Hat buy from Cisco though (now that Red Hat owns Inktank), that would have significant results on the quality of their Linux-based work.
I knew a salesgrunts who, when he left Compaq, really burnt his bridges! Fast forward a year and the hp-Compaq 'merger' happened, much axing of overlapping sales teams, and he found himself managing his old Compaq manager. He said he was never happier getting up in the morning for the few weeks it took before his ex-boss left!
Disclaimer: I work for HP. Much as this might have made 'some' sense a few years ago, I can't see what's in it for HP. EMC have nothing to offer in the array space, StoreOnce is a stronger product than Data Domain so the only real gain would be Isilon which I'd struggle to get excited about being able to sell.
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HP will acquire.. Shareholders smile. HP fumbles and can't quite figure out how to sort it out. Shareholders frown. HP starts dumping employees. Shareholders smile. HP dumps the product line into the bin. Shareholders smile. HP starts looking for another company to acquire. Shareholders smile. Rinse, repeat as needed.
The shame of all this is that it's all caused by an arse with access to lots of other peoples money thinking he's spotted a limping gazelle only to find out he might have shot an elephant.
Anon cause I know a lot of people that are shaking in their boots right now.
It's not about making money - it's about cashing out while they still can. Hardware is EVAPORATING and EMC is pushing up product refresh cycles and scrambling in the field to do ANYTHING they can from the onslaught of:
- Workloads moving to Cloud (SaaS as much as Iaas)
- Flash CRUSHING their profit machine (VMAX has no use case any more)
- Software defined type systems turning JBOD and x86 commodity into SAN
EMC is COOKED. If they don't figure out an exit strategy now they will die a slow and agonizing death over the next few years. Their cash hoard is respectable - but they burn money with their high SG&A model and the market is shifting in multiple ways all at once. They simply can't move quick enough.
But as the poster above said from a product perspective only VMware and maybe isIlon would be of interest, HP have better all round storage products vs EMC's ageing portfolio. I can see the value in the Customer base and maybe some of the IP, but even then it would be a very expensive move given the potential overlap.
Just maybe It's EMC who want something from HP.
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