How Dell's EMC Purchase Plays for VCE

After Dell recently purchased EMC, some wondered what would happen to VCE, which is owned by EMC. Will VCE’s portfolio be swallowed up by Dell, which has some competing solutions in the same space?

For VCE chief operating office, Todd Pavone, the Dell purchase isn’t a problem for VCE as much as an opportunity.

“They're tremendous in the [small and medium-sized business, or SMB] market, and we're good at the high-end markets,” he noted in a recent TechTarget interview. “So, you could see a very good potential complement.”

VCE offers three main converged system products, namely its Vblock system that uses Cisco networking and servers, its VxRack for hyperscale environments, and its EVO:RAIL appliance, VSPEX Blue.

Dell has promised to continue to let VCE partner with Cisco, which is a good start.

“Dell has a tremendous channel to the SMB; I believe the best supply chain in the world,” he said. “And we get to maintain the Vblock as Cisco, which is important, because customers love the Cisco technology for networking servers. We're never going to change that. So, from my perspective, we get the best of both worlds. We get to come together with a great supply chain, great technology that gets us into place that we were never able to get to, and we maintain what we have and to continue to evolve what we have in that core data center.”

Of course, things always look rosy at the start of an acquisition; the hard truths only become evident later, and VCE’s independence could be short-lived.

At the same time, though, VCE does complement Dell’s offerings more than it conflicts. And differentiation can have its advantages, so offering both Dell and VCE solutions where there are conflicts could make sense.

“There's very little overlap when you look at it, which is I think the power of this merger of the two companies,” noted Pavone.

Time will tell if Dell sees it the same way as VCE employees.