Thread regarding Dell Inc. layoffs

@gj there were several other smaller and less significant acquisitions, sometimes IP to add into a product line, something buying a startup with promising tech, outcome-oriented services companies like Make and Clerity, etc.

I didn't list every acquisition, just the consequential and significant ones.

Dell ki-ls anything they touch. They’re too d-mb to do anything but provide cheap parts as computers to customers. They can’t play in any other space.

They’re the McDonalds of the compute space.

@jt Yes! The whole starting with DMS, acquiring Perot (themselves being the former EDS), being acquired by NTT, then going back to Dell thing was such a trip.

@jg Dell never made computers identical to Alienware. Alienware PCs were like the Lexus of the PC market and Dell is the Kia of PCs and has dr-g Alienware down to that level.

@hy replying to myself here. Dell abandoned selling services and gave it away to move hardware, even though services were higher margin. Mostly because the sales force transitioned to younger less experienced talent that couldn't sell the services value prop. That and the sale incentives pushed them to move hardware to meet monthly/quarterly quotas. Definitely was a long term revenue negative act.

idk, realistically I think Alienware was a far better company/brand before Dell bought them. idk if they still sell them but Dell made computers that were identical to an Alienware for a LOT cheaper - because it didn't have all the fun lights or the logo.

Alienware isn't bad, but the biggest issue with them now is Dell started putting proprietary parts in them so that you can't upgrade most of the major hardware yourself. Want a new CPU? Yeah... it's not gonna fit in the mobo socket because they have a "special" socket only they can get chips to fit into.

@d1 Uhhhhh.... SonicWall? LOLOLOL

They have decent firewalls but they are NOT meant for large enterprises like Dell. The ones Dell had were not NGFW and lacked so many features it was comical. They are great for Small/Medium business' because they simply are not powerful enough to handle the mass loads that Dell pushes through them (Trust me on this lol.) There is a reason why Dell sold them off and then turned around and went full Palo Alto.

Sonicwall isn't even a top contender in best firewalls either. Palo, Checkpoint, Fortinet/gate dominate the market for enterprise corporations.

The EMC acquisition helped propel Dell to the top of the enterprise server market, due to EMC's deep penetration and experience selling and supporting the enterprise data center market. Dell support adopted a whole lot of EMC practices.

Michael Dell made 21 billion from the sale of VMWARE (acquired.as part of the EMC acquisition).
EMC was a great company that DELL thrashed.
That ignorant people are still debating how good EMC was says all you need to know about the race to the bottom quality of engineers left in DELL.

@gk Funny how you say prior but all the problems ypu mentioned weren't an issue until after the Dell buyout. Are you sure that word means what you think ot means?

@er There was under investment in EMC prior to Dell buying it - Networks were a total disaster - I also remember the sh1tshow around APEX breaking every other day.

@d1 Was there a NTT acquisition as well ?

@OP Dell destroyed EMC, everyone knows it!

Actually, EqualLogic was one of their more profitable moves. The rumor was that they broke even on the purchase price within a year. The products were good, but the real factor was Dell’s ability to use its sales force to flood the market rapidly with EQL systems. I’d put Compellent in that same category of "very successful" acquisitions that worked out technical-wise and financially.

@d1 nails it - honestly. well done

@cc When Dell bought EMC we were the world leader in storage market share. The 2nd 3rd and 4th place company's combines market share didn't even match ours. Nitice I said storage market share. This doesn't even factor in the massively profitable VMware business unit. Fact is Dell bought a proven company with multiple businesses units that practically printed money and, instead of adopting its business model, they chose to wreck it and take it out on their employees instead of taking accountability.

@OP Did it though? The handful of Alienware fanboys I know all ditched the brand when they realized Dell was just slapping an Alienware logo on the same junk hardware as goes into Dell's other PCs

For a while the EMC takeover was a good deal. Run as a separate division with little interference from Dell, products like XtremIO were market leaders. Dell management began to creep in when what is now called PowerStore was being developed. Too much bureaucracy and a rush to market as the product’s scope was changed several time.

Most of the original EMC folks who developed products are gone and the numbers in support are waning.
When they ki-led the EMC brand and rebranded it Powerwhatever customers lost confidence.

Then the proactive of test to fail in development ended… so did anything special

Alienware EXCELLENT
EqualLogic EXCELLENT
Compellent VERY GOOD
EMC GOOD
Perot Systems POOR
Cloudify POOR
KACE POOR
Exanet POOR
Quest POOR
AppAssure GOOD
MessageOne VERY POOR
Secureworks GOOD
SonicWALL GOOD

As with most of these, their successes or failures all came based on integration, sales motions and marketing. For example, even after the EMC acquisition, there was significant space for an Equallogic/Compellent product set in the market, but this was phased out due to portfolio complexity, resulting in market share damage.
AppAssure was an excellent product, but could not scale features and global support sufficiently to embrace Dell's global model.
Perot was a mess because there was little obligation or incentive to migrate Perot supported customers onto Dell-branded hardware and services.

@a7 the worst thing that happened to Dell was the EMC acquisition! Far too expensive of cost centers with East Coast manufacturing! Should have shut down Franklin and all the NC offices and factory in the first year.

@a7 EMC was already starting to get ki-led in the datacenter; Dell overpaid for EMC which was basically old/expensive storage compared to 3par, Netapp, pure, etc. This also sadly ki-led equalogic which was probably dell's best acquisition. Despite Dell's acquisitions over 1/2 of their revenue is coming from client optiplex, precision, latitude, etc.

@a3 100% It worked for Michael dell and his band of c-suites but the customers and front line workers all got shafted... Imagine if we had a real leader...

@a7 I remember EMC QBRs where we would talk about innovation and new features we developed and what this means to the business. At Dell all they talk about in QBRs is share prices and profits. Don't get me wrong I know this is important but there is just no innovation to talk about at Dell, just profit.

The worst thing to ever happen to EMC was Dell. Dell ki-led EMC. EMC product codebases haven't been touched since the acquisition.

Although no one liked it, the EMC acquisition actually likely worked out well for Dell (Maybe Michael Dell specifically more than anyone) in the. Making a lot of profit off of storage compared to just laptops/desktop. Also sold off VMware, RSA, SecureWorks, etc. which more than paid off.

In the end the customers got sc--wed and there was no value add to customers, but they clearly don't care about that.