By William Fellows
EMC Corp is integrating the Clariion storage systems from its Data General acquisition into its own storage product lines but leave DG’s Aviion product group as an independent division. Frank Hauck is SVP DG integration. His former position, SVP global customer service, is taken by Joseph Walton. EVP marketing Bob Dutowsky gets charge of the Data General server division. EMC CEO Mike Ruettgers takes on Dutowsky’s duties temporarily.
Dutowsky’s appointment makes sense: before coming to EMC Dutowsky was VP marketing for IBM Corp RS/6000 servers. On the other hand industry watchers don’t believe Aviion will be a core interest to EMC and have wondered whether Dutowsky isn’t being set up to ready it for sale. Not the case says EMC, which bought DG under a pooling of interest agreement meaning it can’t sell it off for at least a couple of years. Moreover EMC claims there are technologies in the server group which it wants to be sure are properly leveraged into storage.
EMC is readying a new class of devices to target the market for dedicated network-attached storage appliances where Network Appliance plays. The technology is coming out of DG but EMC declined to say when it will see the light of day or whether it is Hauck or Dutowsky’s bag. Former DG CEO Ron Skates will retire once the integration is complete.
