At the end of the Dell World 2015 event, John Furrier, Dave Vellante and Stu Miniman, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, sat down for a round-table discussion of highlights and under-covered items from the events multiple presentations.

The acquisition of EMC by Dell, Inc., ramifications for customers, market penetration and the need for speed in edging out competition were on the table for discussion, with Dell’s public image as a “PC company” influencing all of the topics.

EMC’s time had come

Vellante, in particular, felt some sadness for the consumption of EMC by Dell, given his time in the Massachusetts region of tech where the company had built a sizable imprint. But with examples such as EMC’s mark-up of Seagate drives to a 10x margin for profit, acknowledged that it was something that “had to be done … it had to happen,” he said.

Changes for customers

Consideration of what the merger had in store for customers, though, led to some dark forecasts, with those relying on legacy systems proposed as the ones likely to be the hardest hit by the upcoming shifts. “Expect elongated product cycle, extended R&D, higher maintenance cost,” Vellante stated. He continued on from his perspective of interacting with the practitioners of Wikibon: “The last thing we would advise our clients to do is sit back and watch what happens.”

Furrier put forth the notion that there might actually be more of a “reverse merger,” leading to there being more EMC in Dell than Dell in EMC. Miniman felt that whichever way the ratio ended up, they’d made notable advances in public perception: “Dell was not considered one of the big enterprise players. Today, they [certainly are].”

The Dell-Microsoft partnership was another high-importance point of discussion, along with companies who had little business experience with Dell fearing the coming changes, and Dell’s need to quickly calm these channels before competitors edged in on their territory. “Every day that Dell and EMC wait on the channel decisions is going to cost them an opportunity with their competitors,” as Vellante put it.

Big changes

However the market will handle these changes, there was a consensus that this year’s Dell World had been a major one. As summed up by Miniman, “We’re gonna look back five years from now and say, ‘Remember when Dell bought EMC?’ and look at all the ripples that are going to happen.”

Watch the full interview 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 during Dell World 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE