Joe Tucci's call most definitely, as only he will be able to see Drive Similar and Sympathetic and yet Dynamically Different and more Far Reaching with his Own, in a Third Party.

Great article!

Can anyone confirm if there is an SEC or similar maximum upper age limit for a director of a public company like Joe Tucci? Or can he sail on and on? . . . and on!

If he has control of the levers of power including considerable influence (control?) of the committees within EMC he could probably stay in place for as long as he chooses so long as there aren't any mishaps and he steers EMC on continued growth.

I agree that CISCO would be an obvious candidate to take over EMC.

Of all tech firms they have the greatest amount of freely available short term cash and cash realisables. But do they want to or have a pressing need to acquire EMC?

A lot of boards have strengthened their positions by filing covenants with the SEC over the last year to help protect and control in the event of takeover approaches, hostile or benign. An example as well as EMC is Sun.

A CISCO EMC combine would be a formidable powerhouse

As would IBM SUN.

Interesting to see what HP do next?

Interesting to consider the competitive dyanamic between others; Hitachi, Microsoft, Google, Dell, Samsung, Fujitsu and Apple . . .

Ray