Welcome to EMC

Dear Isilon Team:

Today is the day that we're announcing that the acquisition is mostly complete.  Sure, there are still a few procedural things left to be done, but I'm told it's OK to come out of our cone of silence and start talking.

You'll probably be receiving all sorts of official communications over the next few days welcoming you to the EMC family.  I thought I'd add my personal thoughts as well.

M&A Isn't Always Fun

We're very empathetic to what you must be feeling now.  You've worked long and hard to build a great company with great products and great customers, and then EMC comes and acquires you.  

All of the sudden, there's the big question: what happens next?

I know you're thinking about this, because many of us have been involved to some degree in the 50+ acquisitions EMC has done over the last handful of years.  Each one of the acquisitions we've done is special and unique, but -- at the same time -- there are some reassuring patterns you should be aware of.

Don't Break What You Bought

Joe Tucci said this many years ago when we were first starting to do M&A, and I think it captures the essence of our thinking.

There were some really good reasons why EMC bought Isilon -- fast-growing market, great products, great people, etc.  The last thing we want to do is screw any of that up.  At its essence, when you buy a company, you're really buying a corporate culture that made all those wonderful things happen, so it's essential that esprit-de-corps remains intact.

Some aspects of the transition are inevitable -- for example, you'll have to come over to our benefits plan (which is fabulous by the way), and you'll start to engage with our internal administrative processes (considerably less fabulous, but workable) -- but it'll all be good once you get used to it.

For the forseeable future, you'll still be working for the same people you work for today, serving customers in much the same way that you were a few months back.  That's important to us, and we know it's important to you and your customers as well.

Welcome To The Toy Box

Look, we know you folks are passionate about storage, same as us.  Your expertise clearly complements ours -- there's no significant overlap that I can see.  Your use cases, your customers, your underlying technology -- all very cool and intriguing to us storage geeks over here at EMC.

We hope you'll find the same over time.  For one thing, we spend billions on storage R&D here at EMC -- there's likely to be dozens of cool things we've done that could help you and your products in some small way.  Or not.  Either way, I think you'll enjoy exploring all the nooks and crannies of the EMC storage portfolio.

Some complementary storage fits are obvious -- for example, our BRS division that has all these great backup solutions that complement the petabytes of primary storage you sell.  Or our professional services and solutions functions that can help customers easily move from standalone products to production environments far more easily.

If you go looking outside the storage portfolio, you'll likely find other bits that are just as useful.  For example, RSA does a lot with information-centric security and GRC -- something that complements the huge repositories you help build.  Our nascent Greenplum-based Data Computing Products division does big data as well -- only theirs is the database and analytics kind.  I'm not 100% sure what the synergies will be between you two, but I'm sure there's something there.

There's more: great management software (Ionix), collaborative content workflows (IIG and Documentum), even the great integration and joint development we do with VMware.  The more you look, the more you'll find.

Lots of goodies in the EMC technology toy box, with more arriving all the time!

Building On Our Foundation

There's a lot of foundational stuff that I think EMC has pretty well nailed; as you come to appreciate it, you'll probably come to the conclusion that -- over time -- it's better to build on what's already there.
For example, I think we've got the whole manufacturing / supply chain / distribution thing humming along nicely.  From our relationships with component manufacturers to our own world-class quality processes, there's some great capabilities there.

Another area I think really shines is customer support.  Sure, we continue to win all these awards for great customer support, but -- more importantly -- our customers tell us we're pretty good at this important discipline as well.  

I can't wait for you to find out that our customers frequently use EMC as an example to hold up to their other vendors as something to aspire to.

Which brings up a very important topic: how we want to relate to our customers and partners.  At EMC, we value that sort of deep relationship that comes from mutual trust and respect. 

The people who buy our products and services are very serious about what they're doing; we feel priviliged and honored that they'd put our trust in us, and we work dilligently to show them that they've made the right decision.  My guess is that you feel the same way.

Every day, we all go to work with the goal of figuring out how we can do better.  As you come into the EMC fold, your outsider perspective is actually quite useful in that regard -- you'll undoubtedly bring some new ideas and perspectives to the table that we can benefit from.

So don't be shy ...

Raise Shields!

You may have been flying a bit below the radar screen with regards to some of the competition.  Now that you're part of EMC, you'll quickly realize that not only is there a far bigger target on your back, but there's far more crap being thrown your way.

People coming into the company are frequently shocked as to just how nasty and unprofessional it can all get.  My advice?  Don't take it personally.  After all, EMC has been the market share leader in so many different storage categories -- and now we add your category to this list!  

It's a small price to pay for success, in the final analysis.

Getting To Know Us

I know, we look big and faceless right now, but -- as you come to know us all -- you'll likely find we're a lot like you.  It wasn't all that long ago that EMC was a small company with a cool product, battling it out against the bigger guys.  Most EMC people are very intelligent, passionate, funny, collaborative, etc.  You'll find that we care about many of the same things you do.

There are some truly amazing people in our world -- sometimes they're employees, other times they're customer or partners.  Either way, if you like working with "A"-level players, there's plenty of opportunities to not only bring your game, but learn from others as well.

You'll appreciate that the org chart is relatively flat.  Most of us find that the management teams are pretty accessible and always engaging.  A majority of the communication and interaction flows across the organizations, and not up and down the traditional silos.  

For example, we've got this internal social media platform (one.emc.com) where everyone hangs out.  As soon as you get onto the corporate network, I'd encourage you to head over there and introduce yourself!

Many of the people who come to us via acquired companies have realized that EMC is a very open and transparent place, career-wise.  There's this neat ability to move around to different parts of the business as your interests and motivations dictate.  And because our business is so diverse (technologically as well as geographically), I frequently tell people if they're bored it's their own damned fault :-)

Looking Forward To Great Things

I"m sort of proud as to how our recent larger acquisitions have turned out.  

RSA, for example, has used the EMC opportunity to greatly expand their capabilities and become one of the driving forces in security and GRC today.  Data Domain became the core of our BRS division -- they took their own capabilities and added it to EMC's, and now they're killing it out there in a way they probably couldn't ever do as well as a standalone entity.  And my impression is that our new friends at Greenplum are a bit overwhelmed at the opportunity in front of them now :-)

That exact same sort of opportunity is now in front of the Isilon team.  I, for one, am looking forward to great things.

I hope you are too.

 

Comments

[The_super_dave]

Chuck,
This may be a question involving too much protected information but does the "IT as a Service" model provide benefits and savings with M&A?
Our company grows through acquisitions and I could see this as a selling point for moving to this model.

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Dave

Now that we've DM'd each other, I think I understand your question, and the answer is *yes*.

When we acquire a company, we acquire their IT portfolio as well. In rather short order, we can usually run their apps on our private cloud within EMC IT, as most of them are using Intel-based apps, and thus are either virtualized on day 1, or can quickly be done.

One they're running on our private cloud, not only do they get the benefits of our capex/opex cost structure, but they get our security, GRC, data protection, etc. Their IT portfolio is better immediately without the need to convert apps or migrate users.

Of course, over time, we want fewer apps here at EMC rather than more apps, so there's some application consolidation that happens after the fact.

Hope this helps.

-- Chuck