Michael Dell didn’t even make it to his keynote before he had to field questions on Dell’s acquisition of EMC at Dell World 2015.
At a live-streamed press conference, the eponymous Dell CEO claimed that the EMC acquisition would create "a world-leading company in the four significant areas of IT today: servers, storage, virtualisation and PCs."
"[It also] gives us an incredible position of the IT of tomorrow: digital transformation, converged infrastructure, the software-defined data, hybrid cloud, security and mobile."
He added that it gives Dell "an incredibly strong go-to market engine, with access to the world’s largest companies as well as incredible reach into small and medium-sized businesses and emerging markets around the world.
"This is combined with the R&D and innovation engine of EMC and Dell together and a world-class supply chain that Dell has been known for. Incredible scale – a company with more than $80 billion in revenue in 22 Gartner magic quadrants."
Asked to compare his company’s strategy to HP, which is planning to split into two companies, Dell said:
"We have a different viewpoint as to how our company should evolve than HP does.
He highlighted scale as one advantage that the combined company would have, saying:
"When you look at this industry, the companies that have succeeded in the volume data centre space have been attached to large PC businesses and client businesses. The volumes really matter."
He also said that the combination would make the jobs of CIOs easier.
"At the very moment that there is an explosion in devices, not just PCs and smartphones but all the embedded devices such as the Internet of Things, we find that customers don’t want more suppliers, they want fewer suppliers."
Pressed further on specific comments about the merger deal made by HP CEO Meg Whitman in an email to her employees, in which she claimed the buy was an "opportunity for HP", he said:
"I think HP is a great VMware partner. I don’t have any other comments."
But he did have other comments, saying:: "I think she got some of the facts wrong; we’ll let the facts speak for themselves."
Dell’s keynote with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will take place tomorrow.
