Michael Dell: EMC's Elias Will Lead Services, IT After Merger

Dell will make EMC's Howard Elias president of global services and IT once the merger of the two companies is complete, CEO Michael Dell said in a letter to employees Monday.

The move comes barely two weeks after Dell said it had reached an agreement to sell its services division, Perot Systems, to Japan-based NTT Data for about $3.1 billion.

Partners at the time of the Perot Systems announcement said the sale would open the door to increased services opportunities as the vendor turns to partners to pick up the services ball on everything from basic integrations to presales, to traditional on-premises services and cloud management.

[Related: Partners Cheer Dell's Steady Hand In EMC Exec Integration Effort]

Elias is EMC's president and chief operating officer responsible for global enterprise services. Since the Dell-EMC merger deal was revealed last October, he's been working with Dell COO Rory Read as co-chief integration officer.

Dan Serpico, CEO of San Francisco-based Dell and EMC partner FusionStorm, said both Read and Elias are highly qualified executives, and "it's no surprise both are going to be involved" in the leadership of the merged company.

Although both Elias' appointment and the Perot Systems sale are to do with services businesses, a Dell spokesman said Monday that the two are "apples and oranges." Suresh Vaswani is president of Dell Services, and his future will be determined by NTT once that acquisition is finalized.

In his letter Monday, Dell said the firm's services organization going forward under Elias will "provide strategic guidance and expertise to help customers drive value through IT innovation."

"The IT organization will encompass the people, technology and systems to deliver the most modern IT experience for our team members, customers and partners," Dell said.

Dell explained that once the sale of Perot Systems to NTT is finalized, "Dell will continue to provide its customers global support, deployment and professional services aligned to our client solutions and enterprise businesses." Dell bought Perot in 2009 for about $3.9 billion.

Dell said the companies' services capabilities will be combined to focus on "customers' migration from today's platforms to tomorrow's technologies and solutions. In addition, the combined Dell and EMC II internal IT organizations will be a showcase for our customers as we help them on their journey to modernize, automate and transform their IT environments and build their digital future."

In the letter, which was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Dell says Read will continue as chief integration officer after the close of the acquisition. Both executives will report directly to the CEO.

The move brings a little more clarity to the Dell-EMC executive picture. Early last month, Dell provided a partial rundown of executive appointments in a memo filed with the SEC concerning the company's proposed $60 billion acquisition of EMC. The acquisition is expected to close between May and October.

According to the memo, Dell's executive group will include VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger; SecureWorks President and CEO Mike Cote; Pivotal CEO Rob Mee; and Rodney Rogers, CEO of Virtustream.

Dell is organizing its Enterprise Systems Group under President David Goulden, currently CEO of EMC Information Infrastructure. As president of the group, Goulden will be responsible for Dell's server, storage, networking, converged infrastructure and solutions, and will report directly to Dell.

Bill Scannell, EMC's global sales chief, will work under Goulden as president of enterprise sales and will lead Dell's global go-to-market organization serving enterprise customers. Also under Goulden are Rodney Rogers, CEO of EMC cloud services powerhouse Virtustream; Amit Yoran, head of RSA; and Rohit Ghai, president of EMC's enterprise content division.

While Scannell heads up enterprise sales, Dell's Marius Haas will continue as president and chief commercial officer, leading global go-to-market for Dell's commercial business, which has historically focused on midmarket and SMB customers. Haas will report directly to Dell.

Jeremy Burton, EMC's marketing president, is being made Dell chief marketing officer. Karen Quintos, Dell's current CMO, is being made chief customer officer and will be responsible for "leading revenue and margin-enhancing programs, ensuring a consistent customer experience across multiple channels, and driving strategies to strengthen and build profitable customer relationships," according to the memo. "Karen will also lead Corporate Citizenship, including social responsibility, entrepreneurship and diversity," the memo says.

Steve Price continues as chief human resources officer and Rich Rothberg remains as general counsel under the reorganization. Also status quo will be John Swainson, president of Dell Software, and CFO Tom Sweet.

Jeff Clarke, currently Dell vice chairman and head of the company's personal computing operation, will get a slightly new title: vice chairman and president, operations and client solutions. He'll be responsible for global supply chain and end-user computing.