EMC shrugs off HPE's catty anti-merger ad campaign

Hewlett Packard Enterprise slammed Dell-EMC merger in full-page national newspaper advert

An EMC bigwig has called out Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) over a newspaper advert in which it claims the Dell-EMC merger will mean the pair will be distracted from their customers.

Last night, EMC's EMEA president Adrian McDonald tweeted a picture of HPE's full-page newspaper advert, the headline of which was: "Don't let the EMC/Dell merger put your business on [pause symbol]".

The copy on the advert continued: "In today's business environment driven by rapid change, you can't afford to miss a beat. Soon EMC and Dell will be forced to turn their attention to integrating two separate organisations with different product lines and services. Will this distraction take their focus off your business?"

On 1 November last year, HP split into HPE and HP Inc - the former focused on servers and storage and the latter specialising in PCs and printers.

Its advert claimed that the split means it has "already streamlined into a modern enterprise" which it insists means it will "stay focused on your business".

But McDonald was unfazed by the advert and tweeted: "Someone's nervous... and it is not EMC, Dell, or our customers #cantwait". His tweet was favourited 70 times and retweeted 68 times, mainly by EMC colleagues and Dell staff.

HPE said in a statement:

"While Dell and EMC are sorting out their future, HPE will continue working to take share and advance our technology leadership in key areas like converged infrastructure, private cloud and all-flash storage."