“The secret to this acquisition is the go-to-market capabilities of EMC,” said Mark Lewis, CEO of Formation Data Systems, Inc. And as former CTO of EMC, Lewis is in a unique position to comment on the Dell-EMC deal.

In an interview with John Furrier, cohost of theCUBE, from theSiliconANGLE Media team, at DellWorld 2015 in Austin, Texas, Lewis said that EMC makes Dell more of an enterprise force, bringing increased diversity and ability for growth. What the acquisition does not bring is the revolutionary technology Lewis sees Dell needing in order to compete against Amazon.

“You just don’t take two big existing vendors and create innovation out of nothing,” he said.

The end of the federation

Asked if he sees the merger as signaling the end of EMC Federation, known as The Federation, Lewis responded, “It’s the end of The Federation as we know it, but there could be Federation Two.” He joked with Furrier that it will be, “Federation: The Next Generation” or “Federation: The Sequel.”

The users have the power

When Furrier asked if Lewis believed that either customers or vendors were in charge of the market, Lewis gave the surprise response of “Neither.” Explaining that “their users are in charge,” Lewis said that the model of control has changed from IT to users.

“If you’re a CTO of IT right now, you have to stop dictating what your users use, and start asking,” he said.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Dell World 2015. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts during Dell World 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE