Live data from Hacker News

Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

wsj.com

61–70 of 108 posts

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#61
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The difference works more like insurance than tech sales.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#62
post #3

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…

It's probably not ripe for disruption. There's too much furniture to move. And "ancient tech" lives forever because it's a solved problem - one need only develop replacement parts as they go obsolete.

Until you've "done what they asked for" and then have 'em be completely unprepared for the ripple effect, it's hard to explain the phenomenon. The status quo, especially in a low interest rate economy, is a really Big Thing.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#63

Funny, I just got back from an interview with EMC. Would now be a good time to take a position?

My dad works for EMC, and he's fairly bullish on the whole situation.

Why is that? Feels like AWS and Azure are bad for pretty much every aspect of their business. Genuinely curious.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#64

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…

> services 98% of all fortune 500 companies. So it's a short list of ten for the other 2%. IBM, HP, ... ?? (Clarification: the ten who don't buy from Dell+EMC. Just curious about that. Direct competitors is my first guess ...)

It wouldn't be uncommon for a Fortune 500 to have no Dell or EMC.

It would be a very unusual Fortune 500 that has no VMWare.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#65

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 real opening EMC has is now being able to sell directly, effectively cutting out the Partner channel which EMC has cultivated over the years and which is why it costs so much by the time you am me go to buy storage. This is where that credit will come in handy. But really how many companies have DIED after being acquired by Dell, Compellent, Sonicwall, Quest SW, and now VMware/EMC. This is where things go to die…

God, so correct. If you are an employee of a company that gets acquired by EMC, consider finding another job!

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#66
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but keeping it as its own entity.

And VMWare owns SpringSource. So basically the Spring framework is owned by Dell.

> And VMWare owns SpringSource

VMware hasn't owned SpringSource since Pivotal was created in 2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpringSource (i.e. "the Spring framework is owned by Dell" is still accurate, but not through Dell owning VMware)

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#68
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> services 98% of all fortune 500 companies. So it's a short list of ten for the other 2%. IBM, HP, ... ?? (Clarification: the ten who don't buy from Dell+EMC. Just curious about that. Direct competitors is my first guess ...)

It wouldn't be uncommon for a Fortune 500 to have no Dell or EMC. It would be a very unusual Fortune 500 that has no VMWare.

Alphabet? I dont think they have any dell, emc, or vmware equipment.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-mi…

>Dell makes most it's money providing enterprise volume orders of desktops/laptop computers I wish they'd bring back the E6400/E6500 style of enterprise Latitude laptops, but of course with modern internals. These newer ones are much uglier and the screens are too short.

Economies of scale. Everyone wanted a high def 16:9 display, so the dyes for 4:3 became too expensive. I also miss my visually perfect 16:10, but alias time marches on.

Re: Dell Closes $60B Merger with EMC

#70
post #36
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." You're not wrong. The problem with your point of view (which I share - it is also my point of view) is that you're operating on the wrong layer of abstraction. These customers don't need a server (or a network or a SAN) - they need business objecti…

This a thousand times.

(Also a very constructive philosophy for technical folks, regardless of their preferred operating layer.)

Post reply on HN