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EMC's VCE welcomes new president amid '250-plus layoffs at all levels'

'Welcome all my staff – not so fast you lot'

It's all change at the top of VCE, the converged data center infrastructure subsidiary of EMC, with Chad Sakac taking the president's job.

Sakac has spent the last 11 years with EMC, ending up as the president of global systems engineering, a role he'll continue to fill in addition to heading VCE. He'll effectively replace the current CEO Praveen Akkiraju, although Akkiraju will be retained to help out Sakac in an advisory role.

"In the past year, VCE has evolved from having a single product to having one of the industry's broadest portfolios of converged infrastructure and solutions with blocks, racks and appliances," said Sakac.

"I am ecstatic," he added.

Funnily enough, Sakac's entrance may leave a bad taste in the mouth of some VCE employees: roughly 250 staff are being shown the door this week, a source familiar with the matter said, and all locations are affected, in particular the organization's Santa Clara office in California. The cull – which will lay off about 12 per cent of the workforce – will hit all levels, we're told, including some senior managers.

"We will not be commenting on speculation," VCE's spokeswoman told El Reg in an email.

Just days ago, EMC confirmed it is axing staff, although the exact numbers and offices involved were not disclosed. EMC's 8-K filing with SEC, the US financial watchdog, states the storage giant – which Dell is trying to buy – has set aside a quarter of a billion dollars to pay for the restructuring.

"The plan consists of a reduction in force which will be substantially completed by the end of the first quarter of 2016 and fully completed by the end of 2016," reads the paperwork. "The total charge resulting from this plan is expected to be approximately $250 million, with total cash payments associated with the plan expected to be $220 million."

The cuts to VCE this week were on the cards before the Dell deal emerged, our source added. EMC is in the middle of absorbing VCE, which was created by Cisco, EMC-owned VMware, and EMC. ®

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