emc

The consortium of companies who successfully bid on Nortel's patent portfolio last year today received the go-ahead from the U.S. Department of Justice to proceed with the acquisition.

That deal was struck last June by the Rockstar Bidco consortium--a group of companies led by Apple that sought ownership of some 6,000 patents and patent applications from the bankrupt Canadian telecom equipment maker.

The deal was put on hold following a DOJ investigation into the effects of the sale, which had a mandated waiting period that expired today.

"We are pleased to emerge from this review process, … Read more

Online storage is becoming a commodity offering. So you'd think that it'd be simple to buy and use, like an external hard disk. Not so much.

Storage companies are jockeying for position in this market by adding features and complexity. The latest: The backup product Mozy (a subsidiary of EMC) is getting a synchronized folder product that works a lot like Dropbox.

Called Stash, it's a shared folder that will draw space from a user's Mozy account. So if you're using 20 gigabytes for backup in a 50GB Mozy account, you'll be able to … Read more

Storage giant EMC reported strong fourth-quarter results with a 2012 outlook that was in line with Wall Street expectations. The company also expects to grow twice as fast as information technology spending overall.

EMC reported fourth-quarter earnings of $832 million, or 38 cents a share, on revenue of $5.6 billion, up 14 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were 49 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting fourth-quarter non-GAAP earnings of 46 cents a share on revenue of $5.49 billion.

For 2011, EMC reported earnings of $2.5 billion, or $1.10 a share, on revenue of $… Read more

Storage giant EMC reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings and said it is on track to hit its 2011 targets.

EMC reported today quarterly earnings of $606 million, or 27 cents a share, on revenue of $4.98 billion, up 18 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were 37 cents a share.

Wall Street, which looks at non-GAAP earnings, was looking for earnings of 36 cents a share on revenue of $4.9 billion.

As for the outlook, Chief Financial Officer David Goulden said the company is on track to meet or beat its 2011 targets. EMC is expecting to deliver … Read more

EMC CEO Joe Tucci plans to become executive chairman at the end of 2012 and hand the reins to a successor.

Tucci, speaking to The Wall Street Journal in a story about executive chairmen, outlined the plan. Tucci will be chairman for two years and help with sales, acquisitions, and other tasks. After that, the successor would consolidate roles. Pat Gelsinger, chief operating officer, would be a favorite for the position.

For EMC, that succession plan playbook has been used before. When Tucci landed the CEO gig in 2001, former chief Michael Ruettgers stayed as an involved chairman.

EMC's … Read more

A consortium of companies that includes Apple and Microsoft has been given the OK by courts in the U.S. and Canada to buy some 6,000 patents and patent applications from Nortel Networks.

Reuters reports that judges from both countries approved the sale in a joint hearing held earlier today.

Late last month, Nortel's patent portfolio was sold to a consortium of technology companies comprising Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion, and Sony. The group beat out rivals including Intel and Google with a $4.5 billion bid for the intellectual property, which included patents and patent … Read more

A consortium comprising Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion, and Sony has purchased Nortel Networks' remaining patent portfolio for $4.5 billion in an auction that began earlier this week.

The group purchased some 6,000 patents and patent applications encompassing technologies such as wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, Internet, and semiconductors, Nortel announced late Thursday.

Nortel, which filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2009, said in a statement it was pleased with the auction's outcome.

"The size and dollar value for this transaction is unprecedented, as was the significant interest in the portfolio among … Read more

After nearly 25 years of relative consistency and market dominance by the likes of EMC and NetApp, there's been a recent flurry of activity in the storage industry. In the past few weeks, Fusion-io was valued at nearly $1.95 billion after its first day of public trading and next-generation storage start-ups Pure Storage and Tintri each closed sizable new funding rounds ($28 million for Pure Storage, $18 million for Tintri).

Spurred by the rise of technological innovations like cloud computing and virtualization, storage is undergoing a major transition--the likes of which it hasn't experienced since the rise … Read more

It's Monday morning at EMC World 2011 and EMC Chairman Joe Tucci opens the show with 10,000-plus in the audience. On stage with Tucci are big black boxes. What's wrong with this picture? EMC is no longer a company that can be primarily characterized as a maker of big black boxes. Tucci has engineered a transformation of EMC from an enterprise IT storage box vendor to a provider of computing platforms. Let me count them:

Nos. 1, 2, and 3: Foremost among EMC's platforms is VMware. EMC owns approximately 85 percent of it, but unlike his … Read more