Dell To Rebrand As Dell Technologies After EMC Merger

Since Dell announced its acquisition of EMC last October - the biggest business technology deal in history at over $60 billion - speculation has been mounting whether the EMC brand would continue after the close of the transaction.

Well, at EMC's annual customer conference in Las Vegas this week, Michael Dell addressed the rumors head-on: The newly combined tech giant will be named Dell Technologies, an umbrella brand for the collection of companies that will include "Dell EMC", the sub-brand for the company’s enterprise business, while the Client Solutions division (PCs and end-user computing) for consumers and businesses will continue to carry the Dell brand.

"The brand equity in the Dell PC is irreplaceable. We have incredible momentum, gaining share in 13 straight quarters. The business is absolutely core to our vision of technology infrastructure and our ability to drive innovation at scale at the edge. And above all, it’s critically important to our customers," Dell said. Adding that, “as family names go, I’m kind of attached to Dell,” he joked.

The other key businesses part of this new federation of companies include Pivotal (cloud platform), VMware and Virtustream (virtualization), SecureWorks and RSA (security).

“Our vision is a strategically aligned family of businesses that brings together customers’ entire infrastructure, from hardware to software to services, from the edge to the core to the cloud," Dell added. With 170,000 employees, the combined company will be smaller than IBM and HP, but bigger than Oracle, Microsoft and SAP.

Michael Dell also touted the fact that Dell Technologies will remain privately held, removing the pressure to hit quarterly financial milestones. “We can invest for the long term — no 90-day shot clock,” Dell said.

However, a dual branding strategy, using Dell as a brand and a sub-brand, could cause confusion in the market and amongst Dell and EMC customers, and could just be a "transition" name until Dell figures which brand is the stronger of the two.

Lastly, Dell also reaffirmed that the acquisition remained on schedule under its original timetable and terms, expected to close this October, although it is still subject to approval by EMC's shareholders, regulatory clearance and other customary closing conditions.