EMC guides its strategy according to what it calls its “triple play.” It serves as a framework to

run the company internally and guide its way in the market.

According to EMC CFO and Executive Vice President David Goulden,that means three things:

• Make sure the business is growing in the overall market and increasing its market share.
• Invest in the future.
• Produce financial leverage.

The trick is to do all three at once.

It’s in this context that EMC models its acquisition strategy, Goulden said on theCube this week at EMC World.

Acquired companies need to be $1 billion businesses when they grow up. Most of the acquisitions do not have that much revenue so most of the growth internally has to be organic.

That puts XtremeIO and Syncplicity in that category. Both acquisitions do represent fundamental technologies as companies move to the cloud and create, aggregate and share data. XtremeIO is in the flash market and Syncplicity is in what can  be loosely described as the cloud management market.

Goulden said in 2002 that EMC did $5 billion in revenues. In 2011, the company posted $20 billion. That $15 billion in growth can be in part attributed to its acquisitions and the organic growth they posted.

VMware did $3.7 billion in revenues last year, accounting for about 25% of that $15 billion.

“We are buying an asset we can develop,” Goulden said.

It’s an insightful viewpoint from one of the most powerful CFO’s in tech and widely considered as an heir to the throne now heldy by Chairman and CEO Joe Tucci.

The question: What company will EMC acquire next?