EMC's turbulent trifecta temporarily ties Tucci to top table

Too many tanks, not enough lawns

However there is severe product overlap in the storage array space with HP’s 3PAR StoreServ directly competing with EMC’s VMAX and VNX array lines. A ruthless approach would say shared networked arrays are a declining force facing replacement by some combination of cloud storage for bulk data/cloud-resident apps and their data on the one hand, and on-premises scaled out, hyper-converged systems using server SANs on the other.

Also disk-based arrays are facing replacement by all-flash arrays, so wind down VMAX, VNX and StoreServ hybrid arrays in favour of XtremIO and DSSD flash arrays with – if it ever comes to fruition – HP’s Machine/Memristor combo being a play in the hyper-converged space.

An EMC acquisition by HP would be Meg’s big deal; she could see that through and then retire. A delivery of EMC into HPE’s hands could be Joe’s retirement triumph: seeing off Elliott with a big payday and creating a huge new force in IT much better able to compete with IBM ($158bn valuation) and Cisco ($140bn valuation).

Nevertheless, it would still be a long way behind Microsoft ($368bn), Amazon ($227bn) and Google ($464bn).

HPE is organised into five parts:

• Enterprise Group (Helion cloud, converged systems – servers, storage, networking and technology services) run by EVP Antonio Neri
• Enterprise Services (EDS)
• Software (app delivery, Haven Big Data, enterprise security, IT ops management, marketing optimisation)
• Financial Services
• Corporate investments (HP Labs and cloud-related incubation projects)

At first glance, if HP bought EMC, it would fit in the Enterprise Group’s Converged Systems organisation as Storage (EMC ii), VMware, Pivotal and other bits. Pivotal could go to HPE Software, ditto VMware. RSA could form a new HPE security division or go to HPE Software's Enterprise Security. VCE and VSPEX could be a new division in the Converged Systems group. Virtustream cloud management could go to Helion and ditto vCloudAir, possibly.

You can arrange the pieces of an HP-EMC jigsaw quite nicely. But will it happen? Do Meg and her board, and Joe and his board, want to make this happen? Could it be the best opportunity-building and problem-solving decision they can see?

The hell we know. We’ll just watch and wait and keep on wondering if the whole idea represents wet dreams by financial analysts.

Federation changes

Tucci was adamant about not spinning off VMware and keeping the federation intact: ”Splitting this federation or spinning off VMware is not a good idea. I firmly believe that we are better together – a lot better together."

He said VMware was on side: "So this does make sense to VMware... the VMware leadership team are solidly behind this. That doesn't mean they are going – we don't want to let them and encourage them to still partner with others because having a open ecosystem is the future."

CFO Zane Rowe added: "We also putting into place a go-to-market organisation entirely focussed on working with our largest customers on a cross-federation basis to better deliver value and drive growth for the business. Changes here include the creation of federation-level bid teams, account management and ordering capability, designed to help customers get more value from our offerings."

This isn’t about combining sales teams, though. Tucci said: "I would not view it as a sales organisation that we are building. That is the furthest thing I want to do. We have great sales people. What we're doing is view it as we're building a set of client directors, which can help co-ordinate, which customers are demanding."

He added: ”These [people] would be not with David [Goulden], not with Pat [Gelsinger], they would be in effect at the federation level with me. And of course, they would be owned by both. They should look like an asset for EMC ii, they should look like an asset for Pivotal. So it's an extra layer and it is not in either EMC, VMware, or Pivotal, or RSA. It's at an extra level.”