Dell EMC held a Q+A today as it closed the biggest merger in the history of the technology industry.
Present during the Q+A were Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, Tom Sweet CFO, David Goulden Infrastructure Group CEO, Howard Elias President Dell EMC Services and IT, Jeremy Burton CMO Dell, Stella Lowe SVP Global Communications Dell.
IDG India, asking about HPE splitting up, competitors.
Goulden: “Can’t comment on rumours about other companies but can tell you that I think formation of Dell Tech is a landscape changing event, if you think about the other companies out there, they are in one form or another reacting to what we have done, I think that forms their strategy, we have stated for a long time that scale matters.
“The ability to invest for the long term matters, breadth and go to market reach matters as well.
We feel confident in our ability to grow and do well in both the old and new parts of our business.
Question: Datacentre knowledge
Virtustream public cloud destination for mission critical public cloud apps, VMware also has this and relationship with IBM.
Will VMware customers be pointed to Virtustream, or will Virtustream and VMware public cloud capacities be merged together over time.
Dell: “We have no plans to merge Virtustream with any part of VMware. If you were at VMworld there was quite a lot of discussion about the evolution of service providers, public clouds and VMware’s role in that.”
‘More partnerships coming in the future.’
Question The Register
R&D spending – 4.5bn, Dell one of the smallest spenders, are you increasing R&D spend. Overlap with products and employees, will you address this?
Sweet: “From an R&D perspective, we are satisfied with that level of spend, allows customers to… we continue to look at that and invest as appropriate given the financial model and strength of business.
“Over time we will think and plan our way through for capabilities that may come together over time. Assure customers we will continue to support all our product families as we move forward.”
Question: Cloud infrastructure, how do you plan to bring together cloud assets, what do you plan to build in house, will you be working with AWS and continuing work Microsoft?
Dell: “We have a number one position market leader in cloud IT infrastructure, Dell, EMC put together, we are a infrastructure market leader in this segment.
“Virtustream focuses on mission critical applications in the public cloud, VMware side has a significant presence in cloud partner network.
“Private cloud, hybrid cloud, native hybrid cloud available today from Dell EMC, cloud is permeating and hitting many parts of our business.”
Goulden “We also have in the family Pivotal with Cloud Foundry, many of the largest companies in world using Cloud Foundry to embrace cloud technology.
“Where cloud tech deployed, it’s not just about where IT occurs but how it occurs.
"Interested in making public cloud instances much more competitive, we are well positioned with converged and hyperconverged.”
Question Boston Globe: Big picture from business standpoint not often they get quite a bit larger and speed up, how do you deal with that in a sector that is moving fast?
Dell: “Always think about how we go faster as we get larger, single best way is to detach yourself from the 90 day reporting cycles which is common among large companies. Took Dell private and it kicked Dell into a new gear, the structure we have with Dell tech is not only have the scale we mentioned with R&D innovation, but also flexibility and agility where we can have start-up businesses within Dell technologies that act very fast.
“Boomi, Pivotal and others will grow organically within Dell Tech. A big focus for us is remaining nimble and agile and gaining share as we grow and serve our customers.”
