The incredible IT hulk: Dell + EMC - did someone say 'synergy'? So, Dell and EMC have signed a definitive agreement for Dell to buy EMC and maintain VMware as a publicly traded company. Essentially EMC goes private as part of Dell and Elliott Management gets the payoff it wanted. The big eight IT suppliers: Cisco, Dell, Oracle, EMC, HDS, HP, IBM and NetApp, have consolidated to seven with …
Haters going to hate hate hate. In any case for acquisitions, name a large NetApp acquisition that has failed. NetApp's acquisition of LSI went quite well with more E-Seires controllers being out there in the world running today than any other storage product. OnTap also is #1 in storage OS market share which will ultimately translate to cDOT market share as customers migrate. As far as Flash Ray goes, certainly that was announced prematurely, but aspects of it are already in NetApp's AFF product which is also doing quite well. There are a lot of NetApp haters on here, but if you look at the facts they generally are wrong.
Yes, maybe Dell customers become more likely to buy VMware over HyperV since they'll get some sort of bundled deal. But HP and Lenovo may be less likely to push VMware than they used to because of the worry that Dell might steal the server buy, so they'll have more reason to get in bed with Microsoft and HyperV.
If I am HP and IBM, I would be looking very carefully at VMware's behavior after this merger. VMW is nominally independent of DellMC, but actions speak louder that words.
If the channel starts pushing VMware as always running the best on Dell, that might just push me into the arms of an alternative just so that my enterprise virtualization strategy is not entirely beholden to one of my deadliest rivals.
Luckily for VMW, the alternative, OpenStack, is still in pieces on the floor of the opensource treehouse. Maybe a Microsoft/Docker alliance with help from HP and IBM is the Plan B?
If I were IBM I'd be looking to make sure that OpenStack runs like shit off a shovel on 'P' Series. IBM has release a number of new 'P' Series boxes optomised for Linux. (S812LC etc)
Then they can tout that and give two fingers to VMware.
After all IBM have spent an awful lof of investment $$$ on Linux and Linux Products in recent years.
But will they?
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OpenStack isn't the competitor to VMware (regardless of what vendors/analysts say, and neither is docker), that is Hyper-V.
OpenStack is aimed at newer cloud applications that do their own HA, deployment etc where the PaaS layer is king (and docker is just another way of providing the run time environment for the code).
All the application needs is a programmatic API to hook into, they don't require "enterprise" grade infrastructure (i.e, no need for HA/DR from the tin). OpenStack is great at that, and it is one of the reasons VMware offer VIO to try and capture some of those workloads that they are loosing.
If Dell are smart they will leave VMware out in the wilds as a mature cash cow (which is what it is) and just take the cash off the back to pay the no doubt ridiculous interest charges (billions of $'s a year) they will have on the debt they are taking on to buy EMC. If they are dumb they will p*ss off the other vendors (by trying to promote) and make them jump into bed with MS to promote Hyper-V for traditional apps and keep promoting OpenStack for the newer applications.
for this $$ couldn't they have just bought: Pure Storage/Brocade/Aerohive/PaloAlto Networks
That would form a strong set of integrated parts.
This Dell-EMC buy leaves me feeling that they need to by Brocade to top it all out leaving only wireless to figure out.
For those that sing along about HCI you must be in the same camp as the people who said cloud IaaS is cheaper call me skeptical but I am yet to see a product in this space that is priced decently.
What Dell customers will get form this is leverage to swing better deals and the EMC SDS could be pushed to lower ends of the market.
"The main competitors for a combined Dell-EMC entity will be Cisco, HDS, HP, IBM, and NetApp."
NetApp are a minnow compared to all of those companies. Why not include QNAP and Synology for good measure - OK, I'm only joking but to include a relatively small storage solution vendor is surprising.
Might want to check IDC on "NetApp are a minnow". In NAS+SAN NetApp is #2 in revenue and #2 in capacity shipped behind EMC. NetApp ships more capacity than #2 IBM and #3 Dell combined for NAS and SAN and generates more revenue for NAS and SAN than IBM, Dell, HP or Hitachi. Not sure how that equates to "minnow".
The main concern of Dell acquisition, is not the overlapping of products, neither if VMware will lose market, not even the integration; but the great debt that acquires that it will suppose a payment of 2.5 billions $ a year, will need more than 25 years to cancel it, this ballasted R&D, the recruiting, the purchase of companies and other investments; HP didn't buy EMC in a wise decision that leaves it free the hands to define the future that wants, Meg Whitman of HP will make purchases with more sense.
VmWare -- distance itself from HP and IBM, already from Cisco; And HCI, Docker, Public Cloud, Hyper V, Open source hypervisor, all are not good for VmWare's future.
EMC -- High end storage array is shrinking while low end storage system went to startups and hyper converged system. Did not see bright future, and that is also why they did not buy Dell, instead Dell buy them.
Dell --- Got the big pie of storage from EMC. Boost its server sales by providing e2e solution.
Cisco --- Either make their own storage system or buy startups. UCS or switches sales will be affected.
HP --- Did not finish split before starting another talk. Their plan is totally screw.
IBM --- ??
It all depends on future IT. If evolves into private/public cloud, others prepare earlier and stay ahead.
Let's see how this merge will turns out.
Cisco have already made a start of sorts in Storage by buying Whiptail, unfortunately that didn't work well and Cisco killed the products earlier this year. At the time it was speculated that EMC had them under the cosh and that the Invicta arrays had quality issues.
Now that EMC looks even more like a competitor than it did before Monday Cisco could either double or quit.
Buying Nutanix could move them forward and there are plenty of independent AFA vendors with products that actually work. Pure have IPO'd and declined a bit, Violin would be very cheap. Both have products that actually work.
Cisco MUST acquire a storage company or two, one for file and one for block. As of right now, they are completely shut out of the converged/hyperconverged arena with this merger.
Nutanix, Simplivity, Violin, Kaminario, Tegile, Tintri are all available for a song right now.
Cisco must get bigger or become much smaller as they get shut out of deals.
inaccuracy of the article, Dell owns Force10 for more than 2 years now which designs its own hardware, of course based on ASICS that are in house designed under license. so there is no network aquisition in the making, it has already been done.
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