Last time Chris Ratcliffe, SVP of Core Technologies at Dell Technologies Inc., visited theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team; he was with EMC. Now, as part of the merged EMC and Dell team, he joined Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), theCUBE co-hosts to talk about the progress the unified company is making.

A tale of merging two companies

Ratcliffe began the interview talking about the integration of the two companies. “Day one, flawless, absolutely flawless,” he began. He went on to explain how the first day after the merger everything was changed — from signage to email domains. “It went the way it’s supposed to go, but usually never does,” he concluded.

Ratcliffe described the synergy between the two companies and noted that even before the merger was announced, the teams were working on bringing their respective technologies together. He said it is going to be a game changer.

Vellante referred to the merger as compact and clean. Ratcliffe revealed that Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies, was very involved and has a methodology for making the quick calls and moving quickly. Moreover, Dell demanded that no customers be left behind.

A blending of technologies

As far as the legacy products from both companies, Ratcliffe began by explaining that the core technologies include XtremIO, which has 3,000 customers and is responsible for $3 billion of revenue in the past three years. He said it’s the absolute leader in the flash market with 40 percent market share. “We are bigger than the next three [competitors] combined,” added Ratcliffe.

He continued on, stating that XtremIO, VMAX, Unity and the Data Domain platform, with its associated software, have all fallen under his responsibility. As of day one, all of the legacy systems will remain supported, and the product’s lifecycle will continue.

All in on all flash

On February 29, EMC declared 2016, “the year of all flash” or #yoaf. Ratcliffe maintained that all flash is the majority of what people want and buy. Throughout the year the company has focused on flash technology enabling and rebuilding the companies’ combined portfolio.

He talked about making a sudden impact by going to all flash, with an order of magnitude improvement taking the millisecond to a microsecond. He reviewed the announcements made and the upgrades to come.

Data protection is top priority

Ratcliffe also talked about how Dell Technologies will use flash to enhance the performance for security. He provided an overview of the Data Domain platform’s ability to recover almost instantly. He believes that security is part of the core critical measure for everything the company does.

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

Photo by SiliconANGLE