How EqualLogic Deal Will Change the Dell-EMC Dynamic

Channel Insider content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. View our editorial policy here.

Dell’s $1.4 billion purchase of iSCSI storage systems maker EqualLogic—the largest acquisition in company history and one of the largest in the data storage genre, period—shocked more than a few people. But perhaps the most important shockee, however, was EMC—one of Dell’s most strategic systems partners.
 

Certainly key people within EMC, the world’s largest storage infrastructure company, already knew what Dell was going to do. I’m also reasonably sure that CEO Joe Tucci advised Michael Dell against it, too.
 

The problem here for EMC—and not Dell—is product and service overlap. EMC already provides some important products that EqualLogic will supplant in Dell’s soon-to-be revamped storage catalog. In fact, sources tell eWEEK that EMC products represent no less than 75 percent of the storage business Dell currently runs. That figure stands to be cut back quite a bit—especially in the SMB (small and midsize business) product offerings.
 

With EqualLogic products cutting in on EMC’s Dell and SMB business, friction between the two longtime partners on several levels is inevitable.
 

Read the full story on eWEEK: How EqualLogic Deal Will Change the Dell-EMC Dynamic