UPDATED 23:00 EDT / OCTOBER 09 2016

NEWS

Dell EMC confirms undisclosed number of job cuts post-merger

Dell Technologies Inc. is laying numerous employees at EMC Corp. following its recent acquisition of that company, according to a report.

A company source told trade publication CRN.com that it’s laying off an undisclosed number of employees, but refused to elaborate on which business units or facilities might be affected. However, The Register claims that the majority of the jobs will be shed at EMC’s former headquarters in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

The news comes following a report from Bloomberg in September that Dell was looking to shed between 2,000 and 3,000 jobs following the completion of its $67 billion acquisition of EMC, which closed that month.

“The number of employees involved is not a material number relative to Dell Technologies’ headcount of approximately 140,000,” a spokesperson for Dell later told Fortune“While job reductions are never our first alternative and we strive to minimize them, in a merger of this size they are necessary given some overlap in functions. We expect that revenue gains will outweigh resulting cost savings, with revenue growth driving future employment.”

The Register seems to contradict Dell’s claims that a minimal number of jobs will be cut, however. It cites “a series of tweets” that claimed that “massive” numbers were involved, with Hopkinton being referred to as a “graveyard” in some tweets. Those tweets prompted Pure Storage Inc. to reach out to displaced EMC staff and invite them to apply for new positions with its company.

Stirring up the ambiguity further, CRN said that employees from both Dell and EMC would be affected by the layoffs. It cited a source that said backend office staff and those associated with Dell and EMC’s backup and recovery, and storage units, would be the hardest hit.

The Register suspects the layoffs could be a maneuver to eliminate some of the product overlap between Dell and EMC, noting that Dell’s PS storage line, which includes its former EqualLogic iSCSI arrays, are no longer listed in the Dell EMC storage product line-up, whereas EMC’s SC (Compellant) arrays are displayed prominently. Dell has already sold off a bunch of assets to help pay for the EMC acquisition, including Perot Systems and also its software business, which comprises Quest Software, Sonic Wall and a few other assets.

To learn more about Dell EMC’s plans moving forward, watch theCUBE‘s recent interview with Michael Dell at VMworld (*Disclosure below):

(Disclosure: TheCUBE, owned by the same company as SiliconANGLE, was the paid media partner for VMworld. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial influence on coverage.)


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