John Furrier, Dave Vellante and Stu Miniman, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, sat down to digest day one of Dell World 2015, one question ignited a heated debate and included a comparison of “The Federation” to the Corleones, with the hosts wondering who the next Moe Greene is.

The question that launched a debate

“What do you think of the deal? Do you like this deal?” asked Furrier.

Vellante answered by saying, “No, yes and kind of,” admitting that emotionally he does not like the deal because, in his opinion, the investments EMC has made over the past decade will eventually go away. He further said that for Dell the deal is interesting, as the company has been struggling to be relevant and now they are; however, for the customer, he feels the impact is yet to be seen. So it is a no for EMC, yes for Dell and a kind of for the customer.

Miniman has a different take. He said that just when he thinks he knows “the deal,” things change. He believes that come next summer, other groups inside the Federation may not be private any longer, sold or spun off due to the deal. Comparing it to a chess game, he said, “There is so much financial engineering behind the scenes and so many pieces of what’s going on and so much nuance … I think that there will be three more shoes that will drop before it all falls out.”

As for Furrier, well, he is just eating his words. He explained that he was quoted at Amazon re:Invent as saying, “There is no way this deal will happen.” However, Furrier likes the deal, and he considers that the cost of capital will be the ultimate driver. He said, “EMC was so close. I think Dell takes the best part of what EMC is and buys the best asset on the market.”

A renaissance for building infrastructure

Furrier also said, “ This could turn out to be a renaissance for building infrastructure,” noting that Dell will most likely be more cost efficient than EMC. “People need to be building.” He added that the pressure to drive revenue is great, and CIOs need to be updating technology in order to compete.

The team discussed the Microsoft partnership, with Vellante remarking that this could strike the “Achilles heel of AWS.” Debating the competition and where various player stand in the ecosystem, there was a series of speculation about who is left in the cloud business. Furrier remarked, “AWS and Azure are cannibalizing the price of cloud and luring the suppliers with candy (or crack) to stay out of the cloud business.”

Debating the Federation

Whether you are pro federation or not, this part of the segment was a literal tennis match of “who are the players?”… ending with the team naming Michel Dell the Godfather of the Federation, which begged the question, who is Moe Greene? Miniman believes that Hewlett-Packard Corp. is an enemy, but he thinks in the end it will be  NetApp, Inc. that gets whacked. In the IPO vs. private debate, Furrier said, ”Private is the new black.”

Advice for EMC employees

The team finds the story confusing, and Furrier thinks it will be interesting to see where the chips land. As for Vellante, his advice to EMC employees, “Embrace it. It’s going to happen. Find the opportunities.”

Watch the full segment below and  be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Dell World 2015. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SiliconANGLE