I just walked back across the street from attending the EMC quarterly employee meeting (which typically covers the financial results). I also was able to hear the latest news about the Data Domain acquisition. When I showed up for the free BBQ I was pleased to see that EMC had hired a couple of local ice cream trucks (I had seconds).
As far as the quarterly results go, the main thing that I took from the financial numbers was the quarter-over-quarter sequential revenue growth. Not only was this encouraging, but even more encouraging was the fact that the 2H09 guidance calls for more growth. That was nice to hear. Couple that with the fact that the aggressive stance on curbing expenses is still in place all the way through 2010 and therefore the bottom line for the company should only continue to get better.
And oh yes, the 5% across-the-board pay reduction will be reversed at the beginning of next year, as planned.
As far as the news about the Data Domain acquisition, a live feed had been set up between the EMC employees in MA and the DD team in CA. There was a lot that was said in the next 30 minutes but here are the items that I found most interesting.
- DD's Frank Slootman comments on the fact that he had poached numerous EMC sales people over the years: "I was just borrowing them".
- Slootman also humorously wondered about EMC athletic talent after an EMC exec strained a muscle playing bocce. Note to Frank: don't worry dude, we've got game;>).
- I found it interesting that the new DD division is going to be "leading the charge" on EMC dedup offerings by actually assuming the authority on several existing EMC products (the exact products are yet to be agreed upon). I'm not sure I can remember an acquisition in which the new team immediately assumed this type of responsibility. In my particular case (Data General's CLARiiON product) we were told "execute your roadmap and don't worry about anything else". In DD's case it's "execute your roadmap AND help grow our other businesses as well.
- Technology-wise, there was discussion on whether or not Data Domain's software assets could be re-used within other EMC products, or if there would be some sort of push for "commonality of assets". At this point Frank Slootman pointed out that much of DD's secret sauce has to do with the enormous bandwidth capabilities of a DD box and that their technology has been purpose built for the quick and efficient dedup of data flowing over that pipe (without dropping or losing a single bit of data). These aspects of the technology don't necessarily equate to widely re-usable deduplication algorithms. This made sense to me.
All in all a good day of corporate news, good humor, and topped off with a little ice cream.
Steve
http://stevetodd.typepad.com
Twitter: @SteveTodd
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