Originating Author: David Vellante
In evaluating EMC's portfolio one of the key components of the strategy is 'optimizing' the information infrastructure. By 'optimize', EMC probably means allocating information infrastructure (resources and capital) as efficiently as possible. While EMC's vision is good and the domains of focus seem reasonable and leading, without clearer metering and accounting of costs (both capex and opex) it will remain unclear to what degree EMC infrastructure facilitates or impedes business capability.
Specifically, while customers can subjectively assess EMC's infrastructure value proposition, optimizing that infrastructure without clear cost transparency to the business remains illusory. While EMC is not alone in lacking these capabilities, and the ROI to EMC may not be compelling (because chargebacks are broken), the fact remains that without measurements at the business level, optimization cannot truly occur.
Action Item: Metering and cost transparency are fundamental to initiatives like software as a service (SaaS) and Google-like storage architectures. Customers should observe EMC's capabilities and the development of its disciplines around storage accounting as a barometer of maturity in these emerging areas. To the extent these capabilities are integrated across solution offerings it will add real value; to the extent they remain disparate, customers, not EMC will bear the costs of optimizing infrastructure.
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