With tomorrow marking the start of our new home under the Dell Technologies umbrella, we got a lot of mileage today out of the joke, “Enjoy your last day at EMC!â€
The truth behind the laughs is that the feelings are bittersweet. When Data General was bought out by EMC, there were similar feelings – had we “won†or “lost†in being acquired? In this case, since Dell isn’t a competitor to EMC, it’s more clear cut. Fewer people feel we’ve “lost†(though some do – I don’t know what “win†they saw coming that nobody else saw).
I personally am a little sad to see EMC go, from the standpoint of a Massachusetts success story being folded into something bigger. But I’m glad to see such a clear vision for the future. I’m excited by the business leaders and their plans. People who aren’t in the industry ask me if this news makes me nervous or scared – I can honestly tell them “no.†Change is a constant fixture at EMC, and while this is change on an unprecedented level it is less nerve-racking to me personally than the dot-com crash or the 2008 recession.
The other side of this is that people who were paying attention were already nervous. I attended a session in the summer of 2015 about EMC and its place in the transforming IT landscape. The constant calls for EMC to split off VMware, or otherwise make drastic changes in response to shareholder pressure were a big part of the conversation. Discussions with my colleagues suggested that something “big†would have to happen in the fall of 2015 if EMC was going to remain recognizable in a few years.
Something big did happen, of course, that fall. And it’s finally completing tomorrow. And out of all the “big†things that might have happened, I think this one has something good in it for the employees, customers, partners, and shareholders. I’m on board.
Tomorrow I’ll be a Dell EMC employee. I’ll pause and reflect on all that made EMC unique and amazing. And then … back to work. Because we’ve got to help make Dell EMC unique and amazing. The battle continues!
These are exciting times.
