After a day of keynotes and interviews at EMC World 2015, John Furrier and Dave Vellante of theCUBE forecasted what they see in the future of the data management space in their kickoff to Day 2’s events.

Furrier, founder of SiliconANGLE, thinks EMC Corp. is headed in the right direction. “The big thing that I like about EMC is … they’re talking about digital transformation. And digital transformation is the key to their strategy. All their customers are transforming,” Furrier stated.

Vellante, chief analyst at Wikibon, agreed. “Everybody’s talking here at the show about digital transformation … I thought that Gelsinger had the best visual. He had a bridge over some river in Pennsylvania [representing an] old client server bridging the new — what they call third platform, cloud, mobile, social, big data. And that’s the big challenge.”

Growing through acquisitions

The two also think EMC is in a strong position for future acquisitions as a means of growth. Furrier predicted that “EMC will be a big buyer of startups. There’s a huge opportunity for M&A activity in the next 18 months, where you will see companies in the $250-$500 million range be acquired, be plugged into the machinery of the federation, and fill in the white spaces.”

Vellante thinks the numbers back this up. “EMC spends 12% of its revenue on R&D and then another 8% on acquisitions. Joe Tucci for years has talked about his ‘string of pearls’ strategy … EMC has been one of those companies that we’ve noted on theCUBE as a sharp acquirer of companies.”

Escape velocity

For the companies being acquired, of course, this may not be such great news. It’s likely, according to Vellante, that only “only one or maybe two [flash companies] are going to see that escape velocity,” and even those will have to target different parts of the market — especially, according to Furrier, if giants like Amazon keep innovating at their current pace.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of EMC World 2015.