Written by Ahmed Khalil
“The biggest surprise is that we have had no surprises,” Michael Dell told audiences at VMWorld 2017. He was reflecting on year one of the Dell EMC merger, a milestone in technology history. The combined forces of the two businesses, under the umbrella of Dell Technologies, created a $67 billion behemoth, the world’s biggest private technology company.
With this, Dell’s vision came to reality: an end-to-end technology partner that is positioned to help drive transformation and innovation in the 21st century. Michael Dell wants to help change the world – and at the first year of the merger his ambitions are manifesting practically.
His comment relates to the expectation that the merger would create some problems, a theme several critics have held onto. Yet Dell Technologies bucked the trend of struggling technology mergers. It heads into its second year with massive market growth, incredible satisfaction among customers and reducing its debt by a massive $9.5 billion.
In a survey conducted by IDC, 91 percent of Dell and EMC’s pre-merger customers agreed that the combined company has kept its promises. Not only that, but Dell Technologies has onboarded over 10,000 business clients clients, a result due to new channel programmes as well as new cross-selling capacities for its salesforce. Today the combined channel business is valued at $35 billion.
“The merger between Dell and EMC has gone incredibly well,” said Ahmed Khalil, General Manager Dell EMC North & West Africa. “We had no doubts about Michael Dell’s vision, but given the track record of technology mergers and the massive global presence of both companies, there were expectations for a bumpier ride. Yet the respective workforces have come together in harmony, our customers have seen their choices and benefits grow, and Dell EMC has emerged as a global leader in the cloud-to-edge digital change. As Michael Dell said, the lack of surprises was the real surprise!”
The potent mix of service delivery has even landed a multi-year contract with the world’s largest industrial company, GE, keen to use Dell EMC technology from infrastructure through to user devices for its own transformation journey. It is one of the largest non-Government contracts in either Dell or EMC’s histories. This performance is reflected in the near-doubling of revenue growth rates among underpenetrated accounts.
Dell EMC’s stellar yet stable growth is further evident in taking the number one market spot of x86 servers, as well as eighteen consecutive quarters of year-over-year PC market share gains. It is also the market leader in all-flash storage systems and converged infrastructure, as well as workstation and monitor shipping.
Yet what Michael Dell was referring to is how little went wrong. An amazing synergy has developed between the workforces of the two companies, and the Dell Technologies family of businesses – Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, Virtustream and VMware – have forged a $74 billion market position with undeniable coverage from the edge to the datacentre to the cloud.
“We set the bar high and exceeded our own expectations,” said Dell. “We’ve made enormous strides this past year in serving the needs of our customers, from governments to fast-growing small businesses to many of the world’s largest enterprises who call Dell Technologies their most strategic IT partner. And we’re just getting started.”
