Dell To Buy EMC For $67 Billion (nytimes.com)

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Dell To Buy EMC For $67 Billion (nytimes.com)

Posted by Soulskill on Monday October 12, 2015 @12:22AM from the go-big-or-go-home dept.

im_thatoneguy writes: After days of rumors, the NY Times is reporting that Dell will in fact be acquiring storage company (and VMWare parent) EMC in a record $67B deal being financed by a consortium of banks. Dell has confirmed the deal on their website.

Under the deal, Dell will pay $33.15 a share, which represents a premium even on top of EMC's current value, which had already jumped on initials rumors of a $50B acquisition last week. However, insiders say the deal won't be a straight forward cash buy-out of stock holders. Instead, EMC investors will receive about 70% in cash and the remainder in what's called a Tracking Stock, which will track the performance of just the VMWare Division within the new organization.

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I'm glad, now, ... by Drewdad · 2015-10-12 00:26 · Score: 5, Funny

...that I didn't get that job with VMware.
1. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by jellomizer · 2015-10-12 00:43 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  VMWare seems like the unit that would actually be making money. However the licenses are really expensive, there are much affordable alternatives out there, but there are still too many muckety-mucks out there who think the most expensive product is still the best, and they should only get the best. However those free/cheaper solutions may or may not be as good, but you may be able to deal with greater growth for less.
  Not that VMWare is bad, it is a good product, it is just really expensive, to the point where you can consider getting additional low end servers vs virtualizing them.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
2. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Drewdad · 2015-10-12 00:52 · Score: 1
  
  Don't get me wrong, I love the VMware product.
  I just don't want to work for Dell. It has a worse reputation in Austin than Samsung, and that's saying something....
3. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by ERJ · 2015-10-12 00:52 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It certainly depends on the use case. Datacenter power and rack space is expensive. If your cost is $100 / month for the additional power and rack for your extra server the vmware package starts to make sense. But yeah, when you get all the bells and whistles VMware can get crazy expensive.
4. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by thaylin · 2015-10-12 01:00 · Score: 2
  
  Question, did the job come with stock options, cause if so you probably should be kicking yourself.
  
  --
  When you cant win, ad hominem.
5. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Drewdad · 2015-10-12 01:10 · Score: 1
  
  I interviewed in the last couple of months, so no.
6. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by swb · 2015-10-12 01:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I think the core virtualization services are tough to beat. Where I work we do both VMware and Hyper-V, and while Hyper-V is pretty close in features most of us that work with both prefer VMware -- there are just too many weird cases where Hyper-V just doesn't work right, but it is popular among cost-cutters.
  
  Not that VMWare is bad, it is a good product, it is just really expensive, to the point where you can consider getting additional low end servers vs virtualizing them.
  The problem with this is that with virtualization you get VM backup and a lot of storage efficiencies you'd never get with single servers, not to mention high availability or hardware replacement. I'm pretty sure low end licenses like Essentials Plus are still cheaper even at 3-4 VMs than additional physical hardware, especially if you have to do better than "low end servers". I'm sure there's some extreme cheapskate math that works in the more hardware method, but you sacrifice a lot of flexibility and you have to also deal with great switching port counts.
  IMHO, the problem VMware has is largely that the problem of virtualization is mostly solved and it's hard to grow the business without coming up with lots of add-ons.
7. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:19 · Score: 0
  
  You would have received RSUs, and those RSUs (all 4 years worth!) would have fully vested at the time of the acquisition.
  So, yeah, sucks to be you.
8. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:34 · Score: 1
  
  Not that VMWare is bad, it is a good product, it is just really expensive, to the point where you can consider getting additional low end servers vs virtualizing them.
  LOL.
  I have ~10,000 VMs. On ~100 Dell R720s.
  'getting a few more' would be slightly unmanageable.
9. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by jbengt · 2015-10-12 01:42 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  VMware was a separate, publicly traded company, with EMC holding the majority of stock. They are still a separate, publicly traded company, but, with Dell holding the majority of stock.
10. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Bengie · 2015-10-12 01:51 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  VMs are rarely the correct answer for environment isolation anyway. VMs are when you absolutely need to run a different OS than the host. For everything else, use jails.
11. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by KGIII · 2015-10-12 01:55 · Score: 2
  
  I have a couple of licensed versions of VMWare. I love it. It's simple enough for a David to use and it just works. I've not yet found any other product that was as seamless and easy to configure. The network bridging that it does is awesome for what I use it for. On top of that, thanks to Slashdot, I'm now a shareholder in the company. I've not checked to see where the prices are today but they've quite likely gone up.
  I grabbed some shares when the last thread went around. I figured it was a good risk. I'll probably unload them before close today or wait until mid-afternoon tomorrow. I've never actually bought any stock that was just about to be acquired before so I'm not actually sure what to do. Truth be told, I have no idea what I'm doing. I just read the trends at sites like this and poke and hope. Somehow, it works. You guys got me to buy an asston of Tesla shares.
  I guess the big thing is that I'm kind of selfish - not greedy so much but selfish. I'm really hoping they don't trash VMWare. I do hope they build a client that runs on BSD. I'd like to be able to use BSD as my host. I spend a lot of time dicking about in a variety of operating systems, too much time really, and would like to be able to use BSD for that with VMWare. So, I'm hoping they grow it instead of ruin it. Why? Because I like it and want to keep it.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
12. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:09 · Score: 0
  
  Then when you need to patch the host you have to take all of those services offline. You use VMs to create highly available services and virtual clusters that allow even small companies to maintain uptimes that used to be unheard of.
  Especially when you're talking about Linux it makes no sense to jail different services when you can deploy additional OS's without much increase in ram or cpu and with zero to no increase in disk space thanks to deduplication. Then you don't have to worry about someone escaping the jail which has happened enough times to merit concern for it being your only isolation method.
13. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Junta · 2015-10-12 02:57 · Score: 2
  
  Note that a 'chroot jail' is distinct from somewhat more thorough use of namespaces and cgroups for isolation. I also have the opinion that having HA is something that is better done up the stack rather than making a particular VM instance HA.
  That said, in practice the namespace/cgroup isolation is coming from a somewhat permissive perspective and locking it down, whereas virtualization tends to be a bit more closed off. So in theory, the container approach should be fine and better, though the area for mistakes is larger, so I'd be wary. Additionally, with HA the same applies, sometimes you don't have the ability to make the application behave as you'd like...
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
14. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 03:00 · Score: 0
  
  Then you are not the customer for VMWare... Once you hit that level you will see the value of VMWare over the cheaper options..
  It's all about uptime my friend and distributing load across a bank of hardware...
15. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Drewdad · 2015-10-12 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  No more than it sucks be any other random schmo who doesn't work for VMware.
  I didn't turn down a job offer, I just didn't get the job. What part of "compromise formation" do you not get? ;)
16. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by theshowmecanuck · 2015-10-12 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  So this and other comments like it seem strange to me. The VMs run on actual servers, not virtual ones. The actual servers have to be high availability before any software that runs on them. And how can you virtualize additional OS's without adding more CPUs, RAM, and disk space without making a joke of what you are running? Presumably you add OS's to actually do something. And in my experience those somethings happen concurrently with what happens in multiple virtual OS's on the physical box. Otherwise you wouldn't need multiple OS's now, would you? And they all require resources. And a host is a host is a host, VM or not. When was the last time you only had to patch one host? You normally will have to patch all of them. Unless of course you run a different operating system for every one of your servers. And I don't know many places that do that (at least not any place of any size). Sure there is some economy of scale virtualizing machines and there are virtues in virtualizing; you can share some resources and save on hardware where appropriate. But I'm surprised to hear anyone say it is for high availability. If anything, it seems like one *huge* point of failure is being described here.
  
  --
  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
17. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 05:25 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  So this and other comments like it seem strange to me. The VMs run on actual servers, not virtual ones. The actual servers have to be high availability before any software that runs on them. And how can you virtualize additional OS's without adding more CPUs, RAM, and disk space without making a joke of what you are running?Presumably you add OS's to actually do something. And in my experience those somethings happen concurrently with what happens in multiple virtual OS's on the physical box. Otherwise you wouldn't need multiple OS's now, would you? And they all require resources. And a host is a host is a host, VM or not. When was the last time you only had to patch one host? You normally will have to patch all of them. Unless of course you run a different operating system for every one of your servers. And I don't know many places that do that (at least not any place of any size). Sure there is some economy of scale virtualizing machines and there are virtues in virtualizing; you can share some resources and save on hardware where appropriate. But I'm surprised to hear anyone say it is for high availability. If anything, it seems like one *huge* point of failure is being described here.
  Yes to a point but if you HA the ESX Hosts (that run the VMs) you can patch and failover/failback your ESX Hosts and so your VMs. You can also move your VMs that happen to be using more resources to ESX Hosts that have more resources available.
  As to running different OSs in VMs, that is more common that you think. We have plenty of end users that run third party apps or custom apps that require certain versions of older or different *NIX hosts that can now all run on 'commodity' Hardware virtualized by VMware (or Hyper-V or XEN).
  It does make managing Servers simpler - they still need managing but it is simpler. The amount of power and hardware is cut drastically, remember that in the old days those 50 servers requiring all that HVAC and Power (and space) were not always running at 100% of their capacity. Now you have a handful of high-end servers that can manage all those 50+ VMs with less power (and space) and it doesn't matter if they aren't running 100% of their capacity, the other VMs will take what is not being used thankyouverymuch.
  It isn't the be-all-and-end-all as people make out - there are still horrendous potentials for performance bottlenecks for things like SAN attached storage and much more understanding of how your virtual networking and virtualized storage connections all tie together, but overall for many, many cases it is a huge cost saver.
18. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Bengie · 2015-10-12 05:31 · Score: 1
  
  Most people don't use VMs for stuff like HA, they use it for environmental isolation. Need to spin up a new Apache instance? Ohh, put Apache on a VM. WTF?!
19. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by im_thatoneguy · 2015-10-12 05:35 · Score: 2
  
  Not that VMWare is bad, it is a good product, it is just really expensive, to the point where you can consider getting additional low end servers vs virtualizing them.
  Oh, it's definitely *cheaper* to virtualize multiple low-end servers. But you don't get live-migration. You can't back up the image and migrate it to a similar but different machine. You can't spin up additional instances on a moment's notice. You can't build a megabox where sometimes a single virtual machine takes up 64GB of RAM and other times is a small 2GB fly on the wall. You lose performance with virtualization (In my testing about 10-15%) but you gain a lot of ease of maintenance.
  We have a render farm and I just deployed a fresh image to half of them yesterday with a single powershell script. It takes less time than some windows updates. It takes a lot less time than installing a suite of applications and tooling them to run correctly on each machine.
20. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by im_thatoneguy · 2015-10-12 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  Ugh... I meant to say "It's definitely *cheaper* to build multiple low end-servers *than* to virtualize."
21. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Quirkz · 2015-10-12 06:39 · Score: 2
  
  I think you may be overlooking that guests can be moved between hosts. You can take an empty host down, do maintenance, and bring it back up without affecting the guest. Depending on how much resources you want to use, you can also have it set so that if a host goes down unintentionally, the guests can automatically reboot (small outage) or fail over instantaneously (little to no outage), so there really is a great deal of improved availability granted by virtualization.
  
  --
  The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
22. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by mattack2 · 2015-10-12 08:50 · Score: 1
  
  The U.S. stock market was closed today.... so you're selling tomorrow at least.
23. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by KGIII · 2015-10-12 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  Heh, cool. I still hadn't checked. LOL I did mention that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I wonder why it closed? It's only considered a holiday in a few states I thought. I'm glad I didn't check - thanks for telling me. I'd have been awfully confused. I got busy playing with Vivaldi. I'd poked at it a few times and finally started poking at it more a couple of days ago and then a lot last night. And then a lot today. It's kind of nifty, the idea at least. I'm drawing down the snapshot from the PPA right now - it seems I may have not been using the most current build.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
24. Re:I'm glad, now, ... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 15:07 · Score: 1
  
  if you are getting all the bells and whistles, comparing cost to bare metal is pretty irrelevant...you are getting a lot of added value.
Your mortgage got you stressed? by willworkforbeer · 2015-10-12 00:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

Imagine the pressure of waking up every day with a US$60Billion debt over your head. No pressure, sales weasels, no pressure at all.

--
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
1. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 00:33 · Score: 1
  
  At least you can declare bankruptcy, liquidate everything, and be back on your feet in a few years.
  Worse is what's facing most of our college educated: $50,000-$150,000+ in unforgivable loans that can't be erased by bankruptcy.
2. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 00:34 · Score: 1
  
  Imagine the pressure of waking up every day with a US$60Billion debt over your head. No pressure, sales weasels, no pressure at all.
  
  Not quite sure why you think large American companies feel pressure due to debt when they can simply ask for a government bailout.
  The auto industry managed to set that precedent nicely.
3. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 00:36 · Score: 0
  
  Who cares? It is not my debt, it is my company's debt. I can take a vacation to Hawaii, while the company crashes and burns (ie sheds/restructures debt through bankruptcy proceedings).
4. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by jellomizer · 2015-10-12 00:47 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Tech companies don't get the political love. Those are run by Geeks and Nerds (terms used in a derogatory form) those guys who the politicians would make fun of and insult as a kid. Unlike the auto industry who is filled with Hard Working Salt of the Earth workers, and creating a product that you can see and touch and buy to impress other people.
  Very Baby Boomer thinking. But that is the generation who is still in charge.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
5. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by willworkforbeer · 2015-10-12 00:51 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Who cares? It is not my debt, it is my company's debt. I can take a vacation to Hawaii, while the company crashes and burns (ie sheds/restructures debt through bankruptcy proceedings).
  If you believe this kind of deep leverage will not affect the cultures at these companies, from the top down, you're probably mistaken.
  
  --
  Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
6. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 00:52 · Score: 0
  
  "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - J. Paul Getty
7. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Drewdad · 2015-10-12 00:53 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Uh.... They H1B visa program would seem to refute this assertion.
8. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 00:54 · Score: 0
  
  So wrong... Look at google's ties to the white house and tech company's ties to the NSA. They get a huge return on investment - its just not monetary compensation.
  Your boomer perspective on boomers is still spot-on
9. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by gtall · 2015-10-12 01:09 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The auto industry paid most of the money back. Depending upon accounting rules, the U.S. lost approx. $9.8 billion to $16 billion. However, this does not count the dent in the U.S. economy and ultimately the tax receipts of NOT bailing out the auto industry (actually, just GM and Chrysler). That dent would have been very large and many people thrown out of work, not least the supply chain for that industry. There is a similar story with the banks paying their wad back.
  Whether you like it or not, a government is a giant insurance policy. We use it to protect the people from getting whacked, something the whiners about the ACA conveniently forget (would that we were all rich and employed). One can argue the banks and Wall Street are too big, and I'd heartily support breaking the former up and reducing the influence of the latter or at least taxing those leeches a lot more.
10. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:12 · Score: 0
  
  The nature a student loan is different from most other loans. Most loans are guaranteed with collateral, and are given based on the credit worthiness of person or organization asking for the money. When a bankruptcy occurs there is usually something of value to sell, to mitigate the losses by the lender. Student loans are given out with little regard for the credit worthiness of the student (because they have little or no history) on the expectation that the student will be responsible, get a job and pay back the loan.
11. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:21 · Score: 1
  
  But what if they get cheated by the college, receive false promises, a substandard education, and have poor prospects?
  What then?
  Oh wait, isn't that exactly what happened?
12. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by segedunum · 2015-10-12 01:28 · Score: 1
  
  The auto industry paid most of the money back.
  Yes, they dug another tunnel and put the money in there.
13. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:46 · Score: 0
  
  That was a long time ago. inflation has made the first figure more like $100,000 to $1 million for Joe Average. The second figure is really now somewhere between $10 billions and $100 billions, since I've seen many large companies/banks/insurances have to take a $1 billion loss without much trouble. See BP, who just accepted that the Gulf oil spill will cost them about $20 billions. And Volkswagen just set apart ~$6 billion as a first step for the NOx scandal.
  Even $10,000 is really a small amount these days, I've only €15000 to 16000 of debt left on my mortgage and I've stopped worrying about it, especially since I have a stable (funded by an international research institute) job for the foreseeable future and reimbursed a lot of the mortgage in the first years. I have now until July 2025 to pay back my house and am in no hurry with the current interest I pay (0.63%).
14. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:47 · Score: 0
  
  You realize that Dell is a private company, with Michael Dell as the primary owner? I'm sure he's very concerned about the success as it has a very direct effect on his own personal finances.
15. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:51 · Score: 0
  
  You turn to the Dems to bail you out, at the expense of those who got jobs after graduating because we studied something useful (not liberal studies or women's studies).
  This is why America is going to hell in a hand basket.
16. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:00 · Score: 0
  
  No? I got a great education. I just squandered it away on hookers, blow, and alcohol.
17. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:03 · Score: 0
  
  You know, it was the boomers that built this industry. Sure, the geeky ones but the boomers built it regardless. You don't think the microcomputer and internet were made by you and your peers, do you?
18. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:13 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This is only true if you don't count the tax bills that the government forgave. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB...
  
  So in terms of what we lost from GM alone, the bill is closer to $60 billion. To prop up their unions, instead of letting another company come in and run them better. What a deal.
19. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Lunix+Nutcase · 2015-10-12 02:24 · Score: 2
  
  It's a far better deal than CBO estimate that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will have cost us ~$2.5 trillion by 2017. $60 billion is a drop in the bucket in comparison.
20. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:28 · Score: 1
  
  I have news for you, I studied software engineering, personally I'm doing quite way and paid back all my college debt after about 8 years of work. Many of my fellow students did not do so well however. Distilling the problem to liberal studies when so many actual engineers on this site are without jobs is definitely hand waving the problem away. It is much better to admit that we encouragement anybody and everybody to go to college so it became a scarce resource as schools can only take on so many students to their costs soared. They had to compete is newer ways like athletic complexes and many other amenities which also raised tuition.
  Vocational schools are largely the way of dodo these days which is a shame since plumbing and electricians are definitely useful and productive skills that are only going to increase in cost as we continue to not train or even encourage training of new plumbers.
  America is going to hell in a hand basket because of unbridled greed that was once considered a mortal sin for the ultra religious and now see mega-Reverends with their own jets. CEOs will do anything to increase their pay even if that means destroying thousands of lives even though they already live quite comfortably. Part of that is the legal obligation to grow publicly traded companies or face the wrath of shareholders. The rule makes sense as you want to encourage people to invest but it comes with side effects that have gotten pretty bad.
21. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:37 · Score: 0
  
  Did you even bother to research the school? Check out its accreditation for your program of choice? Look at its ratings in the numerous publications available online? If some kind of fraud was committed by the school, then sue, or complain to the school's accrediting body. Don't come whining to me with buyer remorse, especially if you didn't do your homework on one of the most significant purchases that you will ever make in your life.
22. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:47 · Score: 0
  
  Nope, most of dell is owned by banks. Even more so after this deal. Besides it is usually just debt restructuring with no effect on employees or the organization. Look at all the airline bankruptcies, they come out pretty well every single time.
23. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:55 · Score: 0
  
  You're expecting 17 year olds to do that amount of research? Most just choose a school because it's close to home, where all their friends are going, or because itnhas some sick parties.
24. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:55 · Score: 0
  
  You mean like the unbridled greed of people who think that student loans should be wiped out just because things didn't work out they way they thought? It is also hand waving to blame your lot in life on mega-Reverands and CEOs. Yes, there are probably too many people going to college, ignoring vocational training, and other educational opportunities, but the problem won't be fixed by making it easier to wipe out the debt incurred by poor decision making. Perhaps it is your only purpose in life to serve as a warning to others.
25. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 03:01 · Score: 0
  
  YES! I am. At 17 you have a parent or guardian to help you. If they are unable or unwilling to help, there are faculty in your school who would be more than willing to help you. Take some personal responsibility.
26. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by theshowmecanuck · 2015-10-12 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  On the expectation they will be able to contribute to the common welfare of the country with the education they receive. There IS a mutual benefit. So why is one side potentially penalized more than the other?
  
  --
  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
27. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 03:36 · Score: 0
  
  Bankruptcy is allowed in numerous situations, except for 18 years olds who made poor decisions, including bankers, doctors, and lawyers, and multi-billion dollar investment banks.
  Student Loans, government largess for Professors and their cronies.
28. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 03:37 · Score: 0
  
  In the case of tech workers bring unable to find work, H1Bs, particularly Indians, middle easterners, and Chinese, are to blame. But that's another can of worms...
29. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 03:56 · Score: 0
  
  This 100000x over. Yea lets complain about helping out American companies while we ignore the "war" that's ruining this country because we don't know when to say uncle.
30. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 04:17 · Score: 0
  
  I will acknowledge the problem you cited. How do we fix this problem so that those in need get the forgiveness they deserve, without opening the floodgates to abuse? Do we limit the number of loans handed out, perhaps by applying strict rules on high school grades, school applied to, and major selected (your credit worthiness)? That would certainly curtail the growth of many of these bloated schools. Less "worthy" students could still get a loan to a community college, to prove themselves.
31. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 04:45 · Score: 0
  
  Car companies have indirectly 100,000 of employees, while tech companies only have a few hundred at most. Most of the production of tech companies is done in low wage countries anyway.
32. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 05:12 · Score: 0
  
  Many of my fellow students did not do so well however. Distilling the problem to liberal studies when so many actual engineers on this site are without jobs is definitely hand waving the problem away.
  You mean the software engineers who face a 3.6% unemployment rate, that's about 2/3 the national average unemployment rate? Yeah, my heart bleeds for these poor disadvantaged middle class college grads with engineering degrees.
  How STUPID do you need to be to be unable to find a job in software today? I guess it's true, what my dad used to say about meeting doctors who seemed curiously incompetent - "hey, somebody had to graduate at the bottom of their med school class."
33. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 05:15 · Score: 0
  
  those guys who the politicians would make fun of and insult as a kid.
  Yeah, because when I look at a photo of the sitting house of representatives, I immediately think, "Wow, there's a bunch of guys and girls who were clearly not nerds. They probably lettered in three sports a year, and crushed mad pussy, unlike those nerdy fucksticks in the AV club."
  Have you LOOKED at your representatives lately? I'm pretty sure that "Jock" material is pretty rare in the capitol building.
34. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by willworkforbeer · 2015-10-12 06:00 · Score: 2
  
  Nope, most of dell is owned by banks. Even more so after this deal. Besides it is usually just debt restructuring with no effect on employees or the organization. Look at all the airline bankruptcies, they come out pretty well every single time.
  There are so few examples of US airlines failing, they barely even made a complete Wikipedia listing of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
  Sorry, that's kind of snarky. I need coffee.
  
  --
  Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
35. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 06:02 · Score: 0
  
  Absolutely, yes. 17 is old enough to expect someone to take some responsibility for their own life, and that includes decisions about planning for their own future. Can they afford college? Are there scholarships or grants available? If they decide to take on student loans, then what is the plan to make enough money to pay them back? These are questions that were pushed on me at that age, and I don't see why other people shouldn't have to answer them as well. Further, if the answer is "no, I can't afford college", or "I can't afford my first-choice school", then they need to come up with an alternate plan.
36. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by khellendros1984 · 2015-10-12 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  Tech companies have a few hundred employees at most? You mean like the 70,000 at EMC and the 109,000 at Dell?
  
  --
  It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
37. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Zak3056 · 2015-10-12 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  It's a far better deal than CBO estimate that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will have cost us ~$2.5 trillion by 2017. $60 billion is a drop in the bucket in comparison.
  non sequitur (nän sekwdr)
  noun - a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
  
  --
  What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
38. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by thaylin · 2015-10-12 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  student loans are mostly backed by the federal government now.
  
  --
  When you cant win, ad hominem.
39. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by thaylin · 2015-10-12 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  Make it so that only government backed loans can be discharged. This severely limits the amount that can be discharged to public school levels.
  
  --
  When you cant win, ad hominem.
40. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by lucm · 2015-10-12 10:20 · Score: 1
  
  Of course we all know it's better to do a 10h online javascript course at Codecademy than getting a "substandard" CS degree full of false promises at CMU or MIT. Google is snatching up Codecademy grads even before they finish their 8th or 9th hour and offers them 6-figure salaries and free snacks. Fuck college!
  
  --
  lucm, indeed.
41. Re: Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 12:22 · Score: 0
  
  And wasted the rest?
42. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 12:32 · Score: 0
  
  Alternatively, a false equivalency. Besides, liberals claim life is priceless. Having a linen sale by comparison !
  Anyway, I know lots of jackasses who signed away their future to get brainwashed by the new slavery. You dumb dumbs could blame your parents, if they weren't divorced..
43. Re:Your mortgage got you stressed? by ThatsMyNick · 2015-10-12 16:50 · Score: 1
  
  Pretty much all of list is airlines that were acquired. EMC would soon be a defunct tech software company.
  Look at the bankruptcies in last 20 years and point me to one airline that failed. Every single airline that is on air right now has gone through bankruptcy.
  Also this was not standard operating procedure in the 50s or 60s.
I thought Lenovo owned EMC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 00:36 · Score: 0

At least my IOMega NAS support was passed to EMC and then Lenovo... and now to Dell?
1. Re:I thought Lenovo owned EMC? by Junta · 2015-10-12 01:20 · Score: 1
  
  Lenovo partnerned with EMC on the low end, and EMC's ownership of iomega became a shared ownership with Lenovo. LenovoEMC is a shared ownership thing between the two companies and has zero technical relation to other EMC products.
  Of course this becomes one of those interesting things, with Lenovo and Dell co-owning something. I suspect one side, the other, or both will walk away from that product line.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Post PC strategy by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 00:39 · Score: 3, Interesting

Even Dell has realized no one buys PCs anymore. They are really smart to diversify into services, where there's still some profit to be made.
1. Re:Post PC strategy by MachineShedFred · 2015-10-12 02:10 · Score: 1
  
  Except that most things they touch turn to shit. Like Symantec for hardware.
  
  --
  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
2. Re:Post PC strategy by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 12:59 · Score: 0
  
  Be careful what you wish for. People obviously still do buy PC's. Your statement:
  
  no one buys PCs anymore
  is emotional at best and is in fact false. It's like saying nobody buys cars any more. Everybody is on motorcycles and skateboards now? No. People just still have PC's that work fine.
  Post PC strategy is what this is not. That's twice. You're lying. Their motivation is profit margins. They still sell PC's. They were not invest-able when they were public and I wouldn't buy anything Dell brand ever tbh.
  VMware is a cool product but Windows is complete global spyware garbage.
  http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-dells-emc-bid-leaves-vmware-looking-like-devalued-currency-1444679221
  ^paywall
  EMC are probably the wise ones bailing out.
3. Re:Post PC strategy by Maritz · 2015-10-13 01:56 · Score: 1
  
  Your statement:
  
  no one buys PCs anymore
  is emotional at best and is in fact false.
  Indeed.
  
  Windows is complete global spyware garbage.
  Now, you didn't let some emotion slip into that statement did you? Surely not.
  
  --
  I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
4. Re:Post PC strategy by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-13 11:56 · Score: 0
  
  complete... that is a fact
  global... that is accurate too
  spyware... yes, it is precisely 100.00% spyware
  garbage... garbage implies discard it
  so Windows factually speaking is accurately international spyware that you should discard.
  I don't need to baby talk in the Queen's English to state a fact.
  The difference between the two is this:
  
  no one buys PCs anymore
  
  False. In fact, Dell still sells PCs. Google it.
  
  Windows is complete global spyware garbage.
  True. It is absolute spyware/malware. The method of dissemination is especially disingenuous. Now try to reckon the facts below and maintain your calm. Linux will brighten your day too. distrowatch.com
  http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/microsoft-has-no-plans-to-tell-us-whats-in-windows-patches/
  http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/09/leaks-show-that-microsoft-writes-release-notes-so-why-cant-it-publish-them/
  https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.html
  http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/how-can-any-company-ever-trust-microsoft-again-3569376/
  http://www.networkworld.com/article/2956574/microsoft-subnet/windows-10-privacy-spyware-settings-user-agreement.html
  http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/08/22/nsa-windows-8-exploit/
  http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/07/11/microsoft-gave-the-nsa-direct-backdoor-access-to-outlook-skype/
  http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/how-stop-windows-10-upgrade-downloading-your-system
  http://www.extremetech.com/computing/195592-with-windows-10-microsoft-could-move-to-a-subscription-based-model
  http://www.extremetech.com/computing/205320-microsoft-windows-10-will-be-the-last-version-of-windows
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GU5uv28a3I
  http://techrights.org/2015/07/31/vista-10-anticompetitive/
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwRYyWn7BEo
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gghj03J_ri0
  http://localghost.org/posts/a-traffic-analysis-of-windows-10
  http://www.ghacks.net/2015/08/28/microsoft-intensifies-data-collection-on-windows-7-and-8-systems/
  THESE
  https://gitlab.com/windowslies/blockwindows
  ^(have to uncomment the #'s on two url's in the hosts file per latest change)
  https://senk9.wordpress.com/checklists/windows-10-privacy-checklist/
Maybe they can make it work by moeinvt · 2015-10-12 01:08 · Score: 2

but I doubt it.
Acquisitions that account for more than a small fraction of the acquiring company's overall value are risky and don't have a good track record. Both companies are fairly well, if not very well managed, so Dell execs aren't going to lend value to EMC's operations in that regard. EMC has positive earnings and is paying out dividends, so Dell won't be providing investment capital that EMC could not otherwise access.
Looks like EMC closed with a market cap of ~$53B on Friday. A $67B acquisition is quite a huge premium on that price. Does the merger of their product lines into a more complete offering create significant value and additional revenue potential? Enough value and potential to justify the $14B premium that Dell is paying for the acquisition? I tend to doubt it.
Of course with Dell being a private company, we won't have the detailed financial reports that we would see for a publicly traded company, so it will be harder to tell how it's going until they file for bankruptcy.
This reeks of a desperate attempt to diversify by a company in a declining industry. Probably a good idea in principle, but going about it on this scale is quite the gamble.
1. Re:Maybe they can make it work by swb · 2015-10-12 01:21 · Score: 2
  
  It's hard to see how they will deal with EMC's storage lineup when they have barely dealt with the Equallogic/Compellent situation.
  Compellent still reeks of a lot of old school fiber channel oriented mindset and offers a lot of features and complexity that a lot of small-midsize organizations don't need or can't really use. Plus there is the longer-term question of what a tiering oriented storage system means in a future that seems increasingly destined to be all-flash based.
  Equallogic seems to cut out a lot of that cruft at the expense of more costly expansion and I'd wager the hybrid (SSD+HDD) units with 10 gig interfaces probably are performance competitive with CML units with similar disk and network configurations.
2. Re:Maybe they can make it work by Junta · 2015-10-12 01:26 · Score: 2
  
  I agree with you. Note I think that the value of the two together is actually less than the two separate. I don't see a lot of upside to having those under one umbrella, on the flipside I see a great deal of headwinds as former partners of EMC and VMware push competitors harder now while they were content to partner with those companies before.
  Netapp, IBM, and Microsoft are in a pretty good position to get Dell competitors behind their products. Not crazy about MS' implementation, but expect there to be a push for it like never seen before.... I wouldn't be surprised to see something like an HP acquisition of Netapp in the future as a reaction to this, which too would be a shame.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
3. Re:Maybe they can make it work by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:41 · Score: 0
  
  I went to a Dell presentation several weeks ago. They are merging the two sets of infrastructure to have one unified system based on the Compellent.
  I imagine the EMC will just go in the highest end.
  The huge elephant in the room was VSAN. Essentially, get 200% of the performance for ~10% of the price. Think Nutanix but on cheap, generic hardware. Now a $15k server (with SSDs+SAS) can easily outperform $100k of disk+servers.
  When VMware gets dedup (now up in the air thanks to Dell), costs will go down even further.
4. Re:Maybe they can make it work by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 02:50 · Score: 0
  
  You are dramatically overestimating the performance of a VSAN. This sounds like you've bought the whole hyper converged BS that says since the storage is closer its magically faster despite no where near the spindle or SSD capacity.
  Combined that with the fact that your data is significantly safer in a real SAN both from a data integrity and disk failure scenarios along with high availability scenarios and VSAN looks a lot less wonderful.
  I've seen many people through in VSANs and then wonder why their SQL workloads are keeping up, same with Exchange workloads which are much friendlier these days even. You can accomplish a lot with cheap hardware. Nutanix, Nimble, Tegile, they are all basically using Supermicro with software controlling the whole shabang.
  So they already have the benefit of cheaper off the shelf hardware and outperform traditional VMAX or NetApp and a fraction of the cost. The only good news about this is that Dell might finally force the integration of all the EMC products to form a coherent platform. Fragmentation in the EMC world is horrible although it has been improving lately.
5. Re:Maybe they can make it work by swb · 2015-10-12 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, and they have been merging CML and EQL now for 2-3 years with little to show for it. CML is still a great tiering system but overly complicated for just farming out block storage to hypervisors.
  IMHO, CML should have overhauled configuration and management more in line with EQL and phased out some of the legacy cruft in I/O management and configuration and streamlined the user interface.
  AFAICT, CML is supposed to be competitive with EMC so it's hard to see where EMC is high end and CML is only mid-tier. If EQL had ever added SAS expansion instead of being only whole-controller-plus-disk expansion they would be seriously eroding CML on the low-mid side.
  I haven't drunk the VSAN kool-aid so I'm not sold on any of it. I don't think it does much for storage efficiency, reliability or hardware migration, there seems to be a lot of backend I/O overhead.
  I do think the emergence of new flash technology (and the continuing decline in current flash prices) will do a lot to upend the storage marketplace. For just about forever, SAN has been about aggregating lots of disks for capacity and performance, with a heavy emphasis on specialized hardware and controllers to manage the performance side. When storage is all flash (ie, a shelf of 24 SSDs supplying 2.4M IOPS and SAS-choking throughput), the need for all the controller complexity seems to go out the window. Beefy interfaces will be necessary, but not necessarily a lot of complexity (like tiering).
6. Re:Maybe they can make it work by lucm · 2015-10-12 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  Acquisitions that account for more than a small fraction of the acquiring company's overall value are risky and don't have a good track record.
  Sure... like Oracle, Cisco, SAP, Google, AMD.
  And outside IT: AT&T, Verizon, Chrysler, Exxon, Comcat, Shell, Pfizer...
  Terrible track record.
  
  --
  lucm, indeed.
7. Re:Maybe they can make it work by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-14 07:55 · Score: 0
  
  Citrix could have been a better purchase - You get the XenServer virtualization stack AND all the nice products Citrix still owns (ShareFile, XenApp/Desktop, Netscaler, etc etc..)
  Tie XenServer with Dell engineering and you could have an interesting product in a few years with the right investments (like fleshing out the ability to live migrate VMs that have true virtual GPUs running - right now no one can do that, and I doubt you will see it for a while).
Will they corrupt VMware? by swb · 2015-10-12 01:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

My worry about this is that Dell will corrupt VMware with hardware-specific "features".
One thing that's been kid of nice about VMware up to this point is that they have been fairly hardware agnostic, which I think improves the innovation of pure virtualization. My worry is that with Dell ownership, they will put pressure on VMware to develop features which give an advantage to Dell hardware solutions.
Maybe it'd be ultimately beneficial to further SDN or SDS, which seem hobbled by a lack of standards at the hardware interface level but I doubt such integration would be oriented at vendor-neutral public standards and more oriented towards monopoly standards.
1. Re:Will they corrupt VMware? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  Historically, that has not happened yet although the options to do it have been there in the past. EMC SAN technology is no more integrated into VMWare than any other SAN. In fact, I'd say many of the other storage players have some very innovative integration that EMC itself does not even have. Same on the backup, replication, and DR pieces offered by VMWare itself, EMC, and/or third party. That doesn't mean Dell won't push for it though either though sale tactics but server hardware these days is 99% the same hardware, just packaged differently buy different companies. They all use basically the same chipsets and components and their only differences from say HP and Dell servers is the remote management/monitoring of those servers.
  My company is a large Cisco, EMC, and VMWare shop. We have VCE vBlocks and a lot of physical HP servers with EMC storage and some with HP storage. We also have some Tintri devices for desktops and virtual storage devices for cloud integration.
2. Re:Will they corrupt VMware? by NatasRevol · 2015-10-12 01:54 · Score: 1
  
  I think the difference in the past vs the future is that Dell almost always tries to put their own ties into their subsidiaries.
  In 2-3 years, it'll be VirtualDell or some shit like that. And all of a sudden, chipsets for other vendors (UCS,HP) won't work as well.
  Or dedup for VSAN will magically never show up even though it was officially promised a month ago.
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
3. Re:Will they corrupt VMware? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:57 · Score: 0
  
  > My company is a large Cisco, EMC, and VMWare shop. We have VCE vBlocks and a lot of physical HP servers with EMC storage and some with HP storage. We also have some Tintri devices for desktops and virtual storage devices for cloud integration.
  You have too much time on your hands. Maintaining that many distinct storage infrastructures is burning any cost savings in hardware or performance. Been there, done that, shredded it *recently*.
4. Re:Will they corrupt VMware? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 03:14 · Score: 0
  
  There might be some good to come of it. Currently you can only do link aggregation with FEC unless you have VMWare Enterprise. Maybe LACP will become an option for all the people out there not using Cisco.
5. Re:Will they corrupt VMware? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 06:31 · Score: 0
  
  Different storage is in 20 different remote offices. We do not need a vBlock with EMC block storage in an office that has 30 people and 5 servers to support to the local office (printing, DHCP, some file storage, caching etc.) As we would not run low end HP P2040 FC SAN's in our data centers with high I/O and 800+ servers.
  We maintain all aspects of roughly 1000 servers (99% virtualized), 225 pieces of Cisco networking gear, 14 SANs, 6 NASs in 19 offices around the globe with 3 people. We hardly have too much time on our hands. Over time, our small offices have less equipment and our regional data centers are getting larger as we consolidate and centralize. We can never get to two data centers because even though we are one company, various countries have different laws for where and where not data can be housed and backed up.
We have a VMWare employee here by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 01:37 · Score: 0

See subject: He's registered /. user Jeremiah Cornelius http://slashdot.org/~Jeremiah+... & I don't see him commenting here on this (he's probably NOT allowed to is my guess).
APK
P.S.=> I'd say that IF you want REAL insights into this (from "the inside" no less), he's your man... apk
1. Re:We have a VMWare employee here by CambodiaSam · 2015-10-12 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  There are no VMware company restrictions that I know of for posting on Slashdot. And yes, I'm a VMware employee.
re: VMWare and cost by King_TJ · 2015-10-12 02:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

Really, the one thing that made VMWare suddenly appear expensive was Microsoft's move to support the same basic functionality built into Windows Server via Hyper-V. Until that happened, your only other "enterprise-grade" solution came from Citrix and had a price tag comparable to VMWare.
VMWare is still available in a free version though, if all you need is the need to virtualize a number of systems on a single server. (That's all we never needed at my previous job working for a small manufacturing firm. We built one high-spec rack mount server and virtualized 5 of the older physical machines to consolidate it into one box with more drive space and usable RAM.)
And if you start considering paying VMWare's price for all of the "vmotion" licensing related to moving VMs between virtual servers, etc.? Depending on what you actually need - you might be able to save some money just going with VMWare "essentials" instead and combining it with the 3rd. party Veeam backup software. Veeam partnered up with VMWare so their backup product can utilize some direct hooks in VMWare itself, to do things that are usually off limits to other applications not made by VMWare.
Very interesting by ErichTheRed · 2015-10-12 02:19 · Score: 2

So it looks like Dell is doing what HP did on the storage front -- buy up a few competitors, merge the technology with the core line, and (possibly) have a big mess while everything consolidates. HP still sells production, ready-to-buy SANs from 3 different "vendors" (HP, 3Par, LeftHand) all while folding the features into something more unified. These consolidations are messy until they're finished, and I expect EMC with all its legacy stuff will be especially hard to merge with Compellent and Equalogic.
What's more interesting is the fact that they now control VMWare. VMWare's the de facto standard for consolidation/vritualization, kind of like Java being the standard for enterprisey applications. Let's just say it would be very difficult for most large companies with on-premises hardware to move away from it. Hyper-V keeps getting more capable, but each of these big platforms has its issues. It sounds like Dell has 2 nice big cash cows -- VMWare licensing, where the vendor lock-in resembles IBM's mainframes or Microsoft Windows., plus EMC, whose reassuringly expensive storage boxes are actually unlimited ATMs connected to the customers' bank accounts. Like I posted previously, that trip through privatization must have washed away a whole lot of sins. That, or they're going into this using insane levels of debt, in which case stupid short term MBA moves might kill the company in an attempt to make the spreadsheets balance.
Wrong Way by JimSadler · 2015-10-12 02:39 · Score: 1

Dell should plow that huge sum into making far better computers than anything they have produced in the past. They have too many problems with existing products.
Re: VMWare and cost by swb · 2015-10-12 03:32 · Score: 1

I have yet to find a use case for VMware SRM where Veeam replication wasn't simpler, more transparent and more flexible.
The one feature missing from Essentials Plus that is useful is storage VMotion. The gotcha is that most small sites don't use it often enough to justify the licensing charge for it. But when you need it, there's really no third party VMware solution that can match moving a running VMs storage from one storage location to another without disruption.
That's quite unusual... apk by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 03:44 · Score: 0

See subject: Many times (in my experience) employees of big companies are restricted from comment in situations like this or others even.
* Your thoughts on it (since JC has not appeared)?
APK
P.S.=> Just curious is all... apk
1. Re:That's quite unusual... apk by CambodiaSam · 2015-10-12 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  There are of course all sorts of restrictions on the types of things we can say related to financial disclosures, confidential information, etc. I think the reason you don't see that one person commenting is that we know about as much as everyone else: what we see in the press. Most of the commentary here has been positive with an overwhelming sense of "Dell is going to have their hands full with EMC." I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just going to be a lot of work to figure that whole thing out and we'll be on the sidelines in the short-term. At VMware it'll probably feel like swapping one 80% shareholder with another 80% shareholder.
  
  My opinion might change after they start trickling out some more information about the deal. The only sure insider bet: Lots of "Dude you're gettin' a Dell" jokes to go around.
Some pro/cons by grilled-cheese · 2015-10-12 04:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

Dell has a history of doing a weird/terrible job at merging in company acquisitions. I'm looking at you Compellant/Equalogic, Wyse, Force10. I suspect EMC is going to be another one of those standalone assets for some time just because at the scale EMC operates, the contractual obligations to their large customers is going to make change slow.

Looking at the storage assets alone, it's a bit strange to merge 3 competing companies together when they really havn't merged the first 2 after several years. The general vibe I've gotten from other peers is to stay away from Dell Storage with a 10ft pole, but EMC hardware was pretty good for traditional storage. When looking at the EMC storage products it's relevant to note the significant differences under the hood when it comes to VNX/VMAX/Isilon coming from the old Data General acquisition in 1999 and the new XtremIO arrays which was a totally different company until 2012.

I do look forward to them eventually gutting whatever hair-brained system manages their support system. After years of working with EMC, I'm fleeing not because they make a poor product or a person does a poor job. Rather, it's because their SR management system is horrible. I shouldn't have to keep my support district manager's cell phone handy when they decide to route my SR into oblivion. I've worked with Dell for a long time as well and at least I can generally talk to a knowledgable human being without have to go through a checklist first.

From a customer account perspective I'm also hopeful. I've had my account rep change 3 times in 2 years; none of which have actually made the trip across the US to see us face-to-face. On the other hand, recently Dell has made several relationship improvements. I actually see my dell rep and his engineer 2-3 times a year. This makes a huge difference in my opinion on the sales/account team.

As a VMware customer as well, I don't see a significant difference in what will happen. EMC has generally been hands off when it comes to steering VMware. The only real advantage I've seen them take with their ownership is getting to be the first out of the gate with new VMware features, but it's not locking others out. If EMC was to take a strong hand in steering the VMware ship VSAN would never have seen the light of day and vVols would be an EMC exclusive. Likewise form VMware's perspective EVO:RAIL wouldn't have allowed any other partners to produce solutions if they weren't trying to be neutral.

I'm hoping that Dell doesn't cannibalize or kill of the EMC Twinstrata acquisition. It will also be interesting to see what Dell does with some of the other EMC assets like RSA, Pivotal, Avamar, Data Domain, the plethora of hosting solutions, Greenplum, Mozy, Watch4Net, & Iomega.
1. Re: Some pro/cons by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 05:06 · Score: 0
  
  Isilon wasn't part of the Data General acquisition. It was an independent company that was acquired in 2011.
2. Re: Some pro/cons by grilled-cheese · 2015-10-12 05:12 · Score: 1
  
  Isilon wasn't part of the Data General acquisition. It was an independent company that was acquired in 2011.
  You are correct. My mistake.
3. Re:Some pro/cons by lucm · 2015-10-12 10:44 · Score: 2
  
  The general vibe I've gotten from other peers is to stay away from Dell Storage with a 10ft pole, but EMC hardware was pretty good for traditional storage.
  If I was you it's those peers I'd stay away with a 10ft pole, and this for two reasons:
  1) Dell has sold Dell-branded EMC hardware since forever
  2) Any of the few acquisitions made by Dell in the storage space over the last 10 years is absolute science-fiction compared to "bleeding edge" EMC
  EMC is a terrible company and they have dragged VMWare down. Hopefully Dell can salvage it.
  
  --
  lucm, indeed.
4. Re:Some pro/cons by bhiestand · 2015-10-13 18:53 · Score: 1
  
  The general vibe I've gotten from other peers is to stay away from Dell Storage with a 10ft pole, but EMC hardware was pretty good for traditional storage.
  If I was you it's those peers I'd stay away with a 10ft pole, and this for two reasons:
  1) Dell has sold Dell-branded EMC hardware since forever
  2) Any of the few acquisitions made by Dell in the storage space over the last 10 years is absolute science-fiction compared to "bleeding edge" EMC
  EMC is a terrible company and they have dragged VMWare down. Hopefully Dell can salvage it.
  Isilon is still good. It's basically everything I like about ZFS... with clustering. I'm not saying it's cheap, or that it's always the best solution, but Isilon is damned good at what it does.
  I'm curious to see what Dell does with it. And how long Isilon can keep using supermicro when they're part of Dell.
  
  --
  SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
Thank God by ISoldat53 · 2015-10-12 04:08 · Score: 1

Thank God Dell's a private company now. I'm glad I sold when I did.
Right - this borders on financial (sort of)... apk by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 04:31 · Score: 0

See subject: However, since you admit being "in-the-dark" you're fine - I was hoping to hear what you all feel will happen employment-wise really!
* I'm actually surprised MORE of you didn't know what was "waiting in the wings" on this buyout is all, actually!
APK
P.S.=> Sometimes, these things "bode well" for existing employees, other times not, in other words... apk
Re:Right - this borders on financial (sort of)... by CambodiaSam · 2015-10-12 04:47 · Score: 1

I guess the happenings in the boardroom are kept pretty quiet. When it comes to employment I don't think anyone here at VMware is worried. Now I would love to hear from EMC folks if they happen to be reading the thread as I suspect they might have stronger opinions...
Goodbye VMware, It was nice... by RH434 · 2015-10-12 06:20 · Score: 1

As a VMware customer, I'm sad to see this happen. I can hope that Dell stays "Hands Off" but that's not their style. Twice I've been bitten by a product or service I used acquired by Dell. Twice the product and support suffered and I phased it out. I hope that this time is different, but I doubt it. I guess I'd better brush up on Microsoft's platform. Honestly, I'd probably save some money too.
1. Re:Goodbye VMware, It was nice... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 10:29 · Score: 0
  
  If you're considering switching anyway don't forget to look at other alternatives as well (various OpenStack based solutions, etc).
  Granted, VMware completely kicks all of their butts over all (Hyper-V included) but you can generally get the job done with any of them, depending how flexible you are and how much work you want to put into implementation and maintenance.
  VMware is just exceptionally well integrated, supported, and polished, plus some extra nice-to-have features thrown in to help justify the premium price.
  Going from VMware to Hyper-V seems roughly equivalent to going from MS Office to Corel Office. At that point, may as well look at LibreOffice and/or Apache OpenOffice.
no posts? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 06:23 · Score: 1

from the horde of people in the recent 'rumor' saying that there was no fucking way dell could possibly pull off a buy of emc?
never underestimate the will of a company hell-bent on buying another.. especially when combined with the will of a company hell-bent on being bought
1. Re:no posts? by lucm · 2015-10-12 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  never underestimate the will of a company hell-bent on buying another.. especially when combined with the will of a company hell-bent on being bought
  Next in line is Tibco. Just like EMC, they have stopped any kind of innovation a long time ago and just positioned themselves to be bought, but unlike EMC nobody gives a shit about Tibco. When even Oracle doesn't want your middleware you suck big time.
  
  --
  lucm, indeed.
Re:Right - this borders on financial (sort of)... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 06:43 · Score: 0

Speaking as an Employee of EMC: We haven't been told anything extra. We got an E-mail from Joe Tucci this morning with some information, and there was a meeting that I haven't watched the recording of yet (it took place in Hopkinton before I went in to work). Some of the publicly-accessible news stories have more concrete details than we've been given as employees. There was rampant speculation in the office toward the end of last week, but it wasn't based on any special information.

Unless we've got some Slashdotters higher up in the management structures of some of the involved companies, I don't think that we'll hear anything interesting from the employees.
does dell still drug-test its employees? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 06:45 · Score: 0

dell still piss-tests its prospective employees, right?
or, did they stop that?
that's one thing that makes me not want to work at a place like dell. the texas angle is one side of it, but the fact that they assume you are a 'bad person' unless you prove to them, in their own republican way, that you 'deserve' to work there.
anyone confirm if dell is still like that?
1. Re:does dell still drug-test its employees? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 09:07 · Score: 0
  
  dell still piss-tests its prospective employees, right?
  or, did they stop that?
  that's one thing that makes me not want to work at a place like dell. the texas angle is one side of it, but the fact that they assume you are a 'bad person' unless you prove to them, in their own republican way, that you 'deserve' to work there.
  anyone confirm if dell is still like that?
  If you even have to ask then I don't want you having responsibility for anything I rely on. Every single lazy immature turd at any place I've worked has complained about not being treated like an adult (because of company rules etc). Anyone with that attitude NEEDS to be watched because 99.9% of them are slackers that truly do need to be treated like children, based on my decades of direct experience.
2. Re:does dell still drug-test its employees? by Maritz · 2015-10-13 00:52 · Score: 1
  
  I'll see your decades of direct experience and raise you one mouldy, rancid onion.
  
  --
  I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Sounds alright... apk by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 08:18 · Score: 0

I think you'll keep your job & it'd be great if you got a raise due to this happening (stockprice boost to be fuel for it etc.)
* :)
APK
P.S.=> Back to Mr. Nicolas Cage in "Next" (2007 film)... apk
That's actually funny... apk by Anonymous Coward · 2015-10-12 08:23 · Score: 0

What you said about news stories being more informational than what you heard @ work, lol - IF you're lucky? This'll happen (while I spoke to a fellow employee of yours apparently) -> http://hardware.slashdot.org/c...
* :)
APK
P.S.=> Back to Mr. Nicolas Cage in "Next" (2007 film)... apk