Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC • Hacker News Board

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#21

Post by johansch » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:37 PM UTC

wslh wrote: post #5

johansch wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just fascinated by the fact that in 2016 there are still huge companies like this making their money on ancient tech that is insanely overpriced to the alternatives. (~20 years ago when I started working in software I thought I would eventually get how these enterprise software giants actually were worth it. The more I learn and age...) In the end I guess what companies like Dell and EMC do is to provide access t…

> I'm just fascinated by the fact that in 2016 there are still huge companies like this making their money on ancient tech that is insanely overpriced to the alternatives. It is basically about switching costs. Even if you have the money you don't want to disrupt your operations because IT is doing a monster migration to different technologies.

I guess what I'm saying is: the companies that are in this situation should hire top-notch developers to solve the problem. But the whole problem is that these companies can't hire top-notch developers because of who they are.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#22

Post by tracker1 » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:39 PM UTC

jasonjei wrote: post #4

Dell tried to get into the cloud services market a long time ago, and didn't succeed. VMware is a weird case too, especially with containerization and cloud service vendors being cheaper to use than building your own cloud. If Dell is trying to make their own cloud, I wonder if they'll succeed this time. Some people have said that ship has sailed for them. Then again, a company like Google has made a compelling compe…

My hope is they'll actually put some resources into bringing VMWare current, and more open as an option, closer to how they were a few years back. ESXi is still a pretty nice server, but running a local/free version instance has become difficult with a few pitfalls if you do the wrong things somewhere... You're all but stuck with windows-only mgt software instead of a web-management interface.

I'd like to see dell go closer to the Redhat model when it comes to VMWare after this closes out. Which would be a stark contrast to prior efforts. Also of interest would be offering "private cloud" hardware/software options. Would be very cool to have a turn-key solution for self-cloud hosting, and with VMWare's work so far, they might be in a better position to actually integrate docker as a solution than others, despite being different than their prior efforts.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#23

Post by signa11 » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:44 PM UTC

jhall1468 wrote: post #20

throwthisaway00 wrote: post #17

Dell will fail because of a systemic problem of hiring poorly skilled and educated engineers. An analogy to cancerous cells in the body multiplying and spreading is not such a stretch. Dell needs a very invasive treatment to eradicate gobs and gobs of worthless engineers and do-nothing mid-level management.

Now that the merger is complete a purge is inevitable. Whether or not they get rid of the correct employees remains to be seen.

> Whether or not they get rid of the correct employees remains to be seen

does that ever happen ?

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#24

Post by pm90 » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:45 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #15

jasonjei wrote: post #4

Dell tried to get into the cloud services market a long time ago, and didn't succeed. VMware is a weird case too, especially with containerization and cloud service vendors being cheaper to use than building your own cloud. If Dell is trying to make their own cloud, I wonder if they'll succeed this time. Some people have said that ship has sailed for them. Then again, a company like Google has made a compelling compe…

Maybe the idea is to get into the private cloud business, in hope that it will grow ?

Exactly. AFAIK Amazon is the only company that has a profitable public cloud atm. Dell/EMC are mostly B2B companies and setting up and managing private clouds is the next gold mine.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#25

Post by biztos » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:48 PM UTC

johansch wrote: post #3

chollida1 wrote: post #2

The new company services 98% of all fortune 500 companies. That's a pretty incredible reach. And 140,000 employee's. If I were a betting main, I'd expect that number to drop in the very near term. Selfishly I'm very interested in following a private Dell,as tech tends to lead to huge companies in monopoly/winner take all verticals. Dell being private is a decent case study to see how well a private company does again…

I'm just fascinated by the fact that in 2016 there are still huge companies like this making their money on ancient tech that is insanely overpriced to the alternatives. (~20 years ago when I started working in software I thought I would eventually get how these enterprise software giants actually were worth it. The more I learn and age...) In the end I guess what companies like Dell and EMC do is to provide access t…

If I have a business making $100M per day using "ancient tech" that costs me, say, $100M per year, I might be interested in switching to the Lambdarific Supracloud, but my interest level will depend a lot more on the risk of failure than on any price difference.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#26

Post by liveoneggs » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:50 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #6

johansch wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just fascinated by the fact that in 2016 there are still huge companies like this making their money on ancient tech that is insanely overpriced to the alternatives. (~20 years ago when I started working in software I thought I would eventually get how these enterprise software giants actually were worth it. The more I learn and age...) In the end I guess what companies like Dell and EMC do is to provide access t…

I've heard the "insanely overpriced" comment before - compared to what? The open source/cheaper alternatives tend to be, bluntly, a joke when it comes to the data storage market. They all either have glaring availability or feature gaps that people who champion them try to paint as "not a big deal". It's not a big deal until your fortune 500 relies on it.

even compared to 3PAR or even NetApp they're crazy expensive

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#27

Post by loeg » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:51 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #2

The new company services 98% of all fortune 500 companies. That's a pretty incredible reach. And 140,000 employee's. If I were a betting main, I'd expect that number to drop in the very near term. Selfishly I'm very interested in following a private Dell,as tech tends to lead to huge companies in monopoly/winner take all verticals. Dell being private is a decent case study to see how well a private company does again…

> The tracking stock, DVMT, that EMC owners were given has traded pretty well since it was released, it's slightly up, so atleast people who want out of the new entity have an easy avenue.

It's trading at a 35% discount from VMW, which is pretty steep.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#28

Post by loeg » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:53 PM UTC

johansch wrote: post #21

wslh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm just fascinated by the fact that in 2016 there are still huge companies like this making their money on ancient tech that is insanely overpriced to the alternatives. It is basically about switching costs. Even if you have the money you don't want to disrupt your operations because IT is doing a monster migration to different technologies.

I guess what I'm saying is: the companies that are in this situation should hire top-notch developers to solve the problem. But the whole problem is that these companies can't hire top-notch developers because of who they are.

Cough. I work there. :-)

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#29

Post by kbenson » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:53 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #18

kbenson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases it's because stability and repeatability are more important in many aspects. At the level where enterprises are buying components to interface directly with people on a regular basis (e.g. workstations), having a slightly more powerful workstation (20%) generally does not compute into a person that is 20% more productive, but having a workstation that fails to function 20% of the time can definitely lea…

What's interesting is your auto comparison... At around $80k, having something custom built/rebuilt starts to become an option... At over $150k it's absolutely an option. Though the majority of cars on the road have a street value of under $25k, and/or are under financing. Getting financing for a one-off isn't really possible unless you don't actually need the financing.

At a large level I think it's a matter of how costly to you is if it fails. For an enterprise, there can be chained ramifications to problems (low-level worker has problem finishing some task so manager is delayed in getting some info so division head is delayed in some report and CEO has to wait another day before he can correctly assess a company wide status report which may delay action until an opportunity is lost, etc), as well as an overall reduction in productivity due to problems when hardware or software that serves a lot of employees is problematic. For the average person, a car is a big investment. In both cases the stakes are high (but in different ways). For a single person buying a computer (when so often data is backed up or remotely available and another computer can be used), or even an enterprise buying a company car for an executive, the cost of that component having problems is not nearly as high.

At the point where the failure of the item costs little but the interest in the item is high, it can make sense to go a more custom route.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#30

Post by valarauca1 » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 6:55 PM UTC

johansch wrote: post #3

chollida1 wrote: post #2

The new company services 98% of all fortune 500 companies. That's a pretty incredible reach. And 140,000 employee's. If I were a betting main, I'd expect that number to drop in the very near term. Selfishly I'm very interested in following a private Dell,as tech tends to lead to huge companies in monopoly/winner take all verticals. Dell being private is a decent case study to see how well a private company does again…

I'm just fascinated by the fact that in 2016 there are still huge companies like this making their money on ancient tech that is insanely overpriced to the alternatives. (~20 years ago when I started working in software I thought I would eventually get how these enterprise software giants actually were worth it. The more I learn and age...) In the end I guess what companies like Dell and EMC do is to provide access t…

Dell makes most it's money providing enterprise volume orders of desktops/laptop computers, repair parts, and certifying+insuring people to work on these computers.

EMC also contractually guarantees data integrity with some of it's higher end products/contracts. As does IBM/HP/Oracle. All your FOSS tools don't offer this, so your company has to shoulder this responsibility yourself.

Underwriting insurance on multi-million dollar contracts isn't something you can just disrupt unless you already have the funds necessary to burn all the way though series B laying around on your person. In which case, isn't their an easier idea to execute?