EMC is the latest in a long list of companies to be acquired by Dell: Credant Technologies, Gate Technologies, Quest Software, Clerity Solutions, Wyse, SonicWall - which were all bought in 2012- and it follows a break after Dell’s exit from the stock exchange in 2013. Only StatSoft was acquired in 2014.

The acquisition will have quite an impact on the IT ecosystem, particularly as EMC is not just a storage manufacturer but also a group with majority shares in VMWare, RSA and Pivotal, so different IT markets will be affected: storage, virtualization, the cloud and security.

The thing is, major historical IT players have to play it both ways: they absolutely have to retain a critical size to be able to cope with price reductions, hence the successive waves of acquisition and consolidation, but they also need to create value by abandoning the hardware part of their offering. In other words, hardware is bought for current business and software for the future.

That EMC has been bought is also indicative of the trouble mono product leaders have with the large accounts target. They always get caught up at some point in time by competitors with similar products, initially positioned as entry-level products, which then benefit from the booster that is the SME market, to attack the large accounts with a competitive pricing structure and a solid installed customer base.

This is similar to how Microsoft, at the time, ultimately ejected Novell from the comfortable place it had found and where it had fallen asleep on the OS networks’ market.

On paper one may well be a bit skeptical. Some see this consolidation strategy as an old-fashioned approach. Dell will have to manage a huge cultural difference. What will remain of the “bride” once the restructuring, which must inevitably happen, is over?  But with HP in the ranks for the acquisition, did Dell really have any choice?  Michael Dell does have a major advantage though. As Dell is no longer a listed company, he can now envisage a strategy that doesn’t require thinking in terms of quarterly results. Let’s give it a little time to see if this acquisition isn’t a cover up for something else that would give the operation more sense, for example, the acquisition of a Cloud hosting company or a service structure.

Net gain in potential partners: 358 (+5.4%)





 

Net gain in potential partners: 289 (+6%)





 

Net gain in potential partners: 170 (+7.5%)





 

Net gain in potential partners: 299 (+5.9%)





 

Net gain in potential partners: 123 (+18%)




 

Net gain in potential partners: 196 (+15.9%)