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EMC will hawk Dell's Nutanix-powered XC kit

Hyper-converged? More like hyper-choice, says Chad Sakac

Exclusive VCE president Chad Sakac has confirmed EMC will pick up Dell's Nutanix-powered XC hyper-converged system, even though EMC's own VxRail hyper-converged system sales are "on fire."

VCE is EMC's Converged Platform Division, and – lest we forget – EMC is going to be gobbled up by Dell, which flogs Nutanix-powered XC gear. If that Dell-EMC acquisition goes ahead, EMC will take over the XC business as well as continue selling its own VxRail line.

Sakac told The Register today:

It's pretty straightforward: Dell is 20 to 30 per cent of the Nutanix business today, or about 420 customers. It's not the right customer move to sever that relationship. Therefore, we'll offer a choice.

VxRail is on fire. Together with VxRack, we are now [selling] north of $50m per quarter with a $200m run-rate as of Q2. We're closing in on 2,000 appliances and 700 customers. That's after 120 selling days.

Clearly we think the best answer for customers standardized on vSphere is VxRail – period. Our [go-to-market] will reflect that. We closed Q2 taking the number two spot from Simplivity.

The VCE boss added: "What will be amazing is when our [hyper-converged infrastructure appliance] business is north of $2bn per annum: we're aiming for that being the run rate by the end of 2017. The [converged infrastructure] business continues to grow at 20 to 40 per cent year-on-year, but is showing some signs of slowing.

"I think we'll get it to $6bn to $8bn by 2019. It will likely peak around 2020. At that point, the HCIA business should be closing in on $10bn if we do things right."

Last month, Dell renewed its OEM deal with Nutanix for the XC software. Assuming the EMC acquisition goes ahead in August, the combined Dell-EMC will be a Nutanix OEM. Who would have forecast that?

This is an enormous vote for Nutanix's product technology and market position. We expect a HCIA startup consolidation to start at once. ®

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