EMC CEO Joe Tucci and other executives presented an ambitious business strategy for 2011 that counts on VMware taking a leading role as the virtualization platform for hybrid cloud computing deployments.
EMC is betting that its VMware virtualization platform will
ride a strong wave of hybrid cloud deployments to drive robust business growth
in 2011.
Joe Tucci, EMC's CEO and chairman, repeatedly emphasized the
company's positioning in cloud computing during an analyst briefing in Boston
on Feb. 8. Since EMC's last analyst event in 2009, cloud computing has evolved from
being just a buzzword everyone was using to become the next "big
game-changing" technology that will make enterprises more nimble and efficient,
he said.
"No segment of the industry will be immune to this
disruption," he said. EMC "recognized the opportunity early" and realigned the
business to meet anticipated customer demand, he said. "Looking back, we got it
right," he said.
Companies are on a "journey to the cloud," with the hybrid
cloud as the eventual goal, Tucci said. Companies virtualize tier 2 and tier 3
applications in the first phase and their mission-critical applications in the
second phase of the cloud journey, he said.
IT as a service will be the last
phase, freeing up companies to shift IT spending toward new technology instead
of maintaining current infrastructure, he said.
"We're in a great
position in storage for the
cloud," Tucci said Feb. 8. "We're focusing our whole strategy on how
to become the company that takes our customers on this journey to benefit from
IT as a service."
Customers are saying things are too complex, too
inefficient, too inflexible and too costly, Tucci said. IT managers have to
support too many operating systems and customized applications within their
data centers. "Almost three-quarters of IT spending is on maintaining existing
applications in existing infrastructure," Tucci said.
EMC has identified several "megatrends" within IT and communications, such as the popularity of mobile devices and
mass connectivity, the shift toward virtualization and the explosion of
information and data, he said. These trends are driving tremendous growth in
the data storage industry as companies search for efficient ways to store and
access "big data," he said.
The amount of data is poised to explode "44 times" in 10
years, to more than 40 zettabytes of data by 2020, Tucci said. For comparison, there
is about 1.23 zettabytes of data today, he said.
There's an "intersection" between enterprise data and cloud,
and EMC is "in the middle," said Pat Gelsinger, president and COO of EMC
Information Infrastructure products. The journey to the cloud is a "shared
vision" with VMware, he said.
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