Dell: EMC deal 'near impossible' if we were still public

Dell's eponymous boss discusses EMC acquisition and what the future holds for the US giant during EMEA Solutions Conference

Michael Dell has said the EMC deal would have been "near impossible" if his company was still in public hands.

His comments came at a press Q&A at this year's EMEA Solutions Conference in Vienna attended by over 500 partners.

When asked by CRN during the session if the $67bn deal for EMC would have been possible if Dell was still public, he said: "I think the technical answer is yes - you can do anything as a private company that you can do as a public company.

"The practical answer is [it's] much more difficult, maybe near impossible. The freedom of action as a private company is far greater than in a public company."

Dell was taken private in 2013, and its eponymous CEO has previously extolled the virtues of moving into private hands, during an interview with Bloomberg TV.

And in Vienna, the Texan tech baron reiterated how crucial this move has been to the company's history.

"Going private has been a great thing for our company," he said. "We have been able to focus 100 per cent on our customers. We have had 11 quarters in a row of gaining share in our client business. We continue to gain share in our server business. We have record NPS (net promotor scores), [and] we have record high scores in our employee engagement."

Leaders of the future?

Addressing the EMC acquisition, Dell said the move will help ensure the company continues to dominate IT for years to come.

"What is this all about? If you think the four big pillars of IT today, you have server, storage, virtualisation and PC. Our new company will be an absolute leader in all four of those.

"In addition, our company will be a leader in the IT of tomorrow, which you think of as the third platform. This is what a lot of our customers are thinking about - ‘how do I transform my business?' [With] digital transformation, the software-defined datacentre, converged infrastructure, hybrid cloud.

"And we do all this with a company with unmatched reach, with the largest customers in the world, coming all the way down to the smallest ones. In every country in the world, except for the two-or-three we aren't allowed to sell into. A company with over $80bn in revenues, with unmatched scale and strength in innovation and supply chain. And a company that's a leader in 22 Gartner magic quadrants, well ahead of any other company. All as a privately controlled company."