EMC Corporation (EMC) and VMware have announced that both companies will be co-owners of Virtustream, the company EMC purchased earlier this year for $1.2 billion. Virtustream will leverage EMC hardware and VMware software to provide a range of cloud offerings designed to provide competition for the major cloud players - Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. The timing of the partnership has taken the industry by surprise, not least because Dell had confirmed only last week it would acquire EMC for $67 billion – the biggest technology deal ever, and one which included EMC's share of VMware.
To formulate the deal, EMC, which has headquarters in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, USA, has moved Virtustream and VMware cloud to be part of the new Virtustream brand, which will be under the leadership of Rodney Rogers, who will is the company’s CEO. The new Virtustream will adopt VMware’s vCloud Air public cloud and Virtustream’s cloud.
The new partnership may be a response to falling shares at VMware and a bid to demonstrate VMware’s independence – news of Dell’s purchase brought the company’s shares down 5%, but Michael Dell, head of Dell, stated publically that should the $67 billion plan go through, he would maintain VMware as an independent entity.
"Through Virtustream, we are addressing the changes in buying patterns and IT cloud operation models that we are seeing in the market,” explained EMC Corporation’s Chairman and CEO Joe Tucci in a press release posted on the EMC website. “Our customers consistently tell us that they are focused on their IT transformations and journeys to the hybrid cloud. The EMC Federation is now positioned as a complete provider of hybrid cloud offerings.”
“The new business will incorporate and align the cloud capabilities of EMC Information Infrastructure, VCE, Virtustream and VMware to provide the complete spectrum of on- and off- premises offerings including: VMware vCloud Air, VCE Cloud Managed Services, Virtustream's Infrastructure-as-a-Service, and EMC's Storage Managed Services and Object Storage Services offerings,” added the press release.
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