* CEO Joe Tucci talks about the economy and how EMC will weather it
EMC CEO Joe Tucci last week spoke out on a number of topics at a meeting of institutional investors for EMC.
First Tucci attacked the economy and spoke of how EMC will weather it.
“We do believe we’re going into this strong and we are going to, across the board, make sure we gain share in this environment,” says Tucci. “We’re doing everything we can to preserve the maximum number of people around our customers. Cutting sales people in an environment that is down will backfire on you.” EMC recently announced plans to lay off 2,400 employees, none of them from sales.
He then turned to the topic of enterprise flash drives. EMC incorporated flash drives into three of its top products: the DMX4, CLARiiON and Celerra.
“The last two quarters, we completely sold out,” says Tucci. “We sold every flash drive we could get our hands on. Flash drives use less power, but swap data much faster than traditional drives. “That’s totally changing the game.”
And, next he spoke of the prospect of EMC acquiring a few companies … and what type of companies those might be.
“At this point in time, my No. 1 target would be a company that’s in a business that’s very similar to ours, not an adjacent market,” said Tucci in an interview with a trade publication. “I don’t think it’s a great time to enter an adjacent market. I think it’s a great time to get stronger.”
“[We would look at] companies that would make our virtual infrastructure strategy strong, and that would make our information infrastructure strategy stronger.”
In the area of R&D, Tucci said that EMC spent 12% of its revenue last year.
And finally, a subject everyone is interested in – will EMC sell off VMware. Absolutely not, Tucci says. “We have no intention of separating these two companies and strategies.”
