As EMC World 2016 began at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas, the changing of the guard for EMC was realized as Joe Tucci, EMC chairman and CEO, went on stage to reminisce about the conference’s early days in 2001. Back then it was called Wizard’s World, and over the past 15 years it has grown into one of the most significant conferences in technology.

Why Merge? Why Dell? Why now?

Tucci opened the keynote explaining his vision of the Dell/EMC merger by saying, “This is the beginning of something greater.” He spoke about the merger in terms of shifting from the industrial revolution to the digital revolution, which he said was spawned by the millions of connected devices and sensors via the Internet of Things (IoT).

” As all these connected devices start throwing out a treasure trove of data, how companies and enterprises collect that data, and become more intimate with their customers, more productive with their supply chains, more in touch with their people — it’s just going to change the whole business model,” he said.

Tucci closed on a personal note, telling the audience it is the last time he will be on the stage in his role as chairman and CEO. He thanked the customers and all the people who helped EMC grow over the years. He then said he was handing the baton over to Michael Dell, who deeply cares about the success of customers.

Michael Dell, CEO of Dell, Inc., joined Tucci on stage, and with the audience supplying a standing ovation, he thanked him for his friendship and advice.

Creating the next wave of technology

Dell opened by saying that the combination of both companies is creating the next great technology company for the customers and users to pave the way for the future. He compared technology from 15 years ago (3 gig iPods and 3G networks) to what is available today.

“Today those models seem like relics from the past because the force in exponential processing power, in bandwidth and storage is about 10 times every five years,” he said. “If we look back to 2001, what seemed like a miracle then is 1,000 times better today. Now think about 15 years from now to the year 2031, and another 1,000 times improvement.”

He provided examples of the possibilities. “The pace of progress is accelerating and so too the growth in the number of devices, number of nodes, number of connective nodes accelerate, as well and the marginal cost of making something intelligent is approaching zero.”

IoT will challenge us

Dell believes that we are moving from the connective devices and IoT to the Internet of Everything, which will include food, agriculture, pipelines, healthcare supplies and devices, apparel, military, rails and cars … and by 2031 the number of connective devices will go from 8 billion today to over 200 billion — 25 times the number people on planet today.

Speaking to the proliferation of IoT, Dell remarked, “All the new nodes and devices will bring massive amounts of new information, and using that information, especially in real time to provide better insights to build a better world, that is the challenge of our generation. That is the challenge we are all facing, and it’s the opportunity.”

Dell spoke about a new infrastructure. He said the new data center’s infrastructure will be cloud native in a DevOps model. And he punctuated that Dell and EMC will be a major cloud company, and as the enterprise has more pressure to accelerate and reduce costs, someone will still need to manage today’s infrastructure while innovating to create a digital future.

Merging point of views

The compatibility of Dell and EMC was hammered home as Dell proclaimed, “No one is more relevant or able to add value in your data centers.” He reviewed the capabilities that both companies bring to the table, noting software-defined everything, Big Data, security and world-class services. The vision is integrated comprehensive solutions across companies, which will deliver technology to the broadest customer base.

Some of the benefits he noted were the fact that the combined companies will be private and make investments for the long term without a 90-day shop clock. The commitment will be customer focused and deliver outcomes that drive growth. “Bringing together the entire infrastructure from edge to core, to cloud and providing choice and flexibility will help customer optimize with confidence,” Dell said.

Pondering what to call the new company family of businesses, Dell said he was partial to the name Dell. He announced,” After the close of the transaction, the combined companies will become Dell Technologies.” Going forward the mission is to build scale, foster speed and be agile and innovate.

Be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of EMC World 2016.

Photo by EMC World