World's largest technology merger between Dell and EMC comes into effect

As the world’s largest technology merger between EMC and Dell formally came into being on Wednesday, the driving force behind the $67 billion marriage, Michael Dell, said that this was just the beginning and “the real show is just getting started,” in the coming digital revolution. “We have the products, the services, the talent and the global scale to be catalyst for change and guide customers, large and small, on their digital journey,” the Chairman and CEO of the merged entity Dell Technologies told an online Q&A session with the press and analysts from the company headquarters in Texas, United States. The merger, between the giants in storage systems and personal computer markets, has been in the making for almost a year and the last regulatory hurdle, from Chinese authorities, was crossed late last month. Dell Technologies, begins operating immediately. EMC shareholders had approved the transaction on July 19, with approximately 98 percent of voting EMC shareholders casting their votes in favour of the merger, representing approximately 74 percent of EMC’s outstanding common stock. In response to a question, Dell said that they had chosen the path of providing complete solutions of hardware, software and cloud offering to its clients even as their competitors were shedding parts of their businesses to focus on one or the other.“We say scale matters, innovation matters and breadth of market reach matters. Others may find this challenging,” he said, adding that they can grow and do well. He said that other companies, in one form or the other, were reacting to what the two large companies had done. “We feel confident in the approach we have take and will wait for others to react to it,” he said. In response to another question, Dell said that the $4.5 billion they had set aside for R&D would be adequate to build solutions and support products lines that they had. “Our investments in R&D and innovation, along with our 140,000 team members around the world, will give us unmatched scale, strength and flexibility, deepening our relationships with customers of all sizes,” he had said in his opening remarks. EMC shareholders will receive $24.05 per share in cash in addition to a newly issued tracking stock linked to a portion of EMC’s economic interest in the VMware business. EMC shareholders are expected to receive approximately 0.111 shares of new tracking stock for each EMC share. The combined entity has a revenue of $74 billion with 140,000 employees and a presence in 180 countries. Recalling his journey in the PC business, Dell said that when he started building computers in his dorm, he did not know where it would all go. But one thing was sure, that the future was in the IT business. He said they were now standing where the digital revolution in the world was taking everyone beyond processes to automated complex tasks, from virtual and augmented realities to whole new ways of doing business. “We have the vision, the innovation, market position and horsepower to drea” big," dell said adding that the future was going to “unleash a torrent of innovation.” David Goulden, President, Infrastructure and Solutions Group of Dell-EMC said that the joint entity had become a clear market leadership in many segments, including storage, convergence and cloud infrastructure and was poised to become in many “ore. “Dell EMC is open for business and we look forward to serve” you,” he said. IANS