History 2001: EMC Reorganizes Into 3 Operating Units

In order to get the wind back in its sails, EMC is reorganizing itself into 3 operating units, including one solely dedicated to software, while legendarily wealthy Moshe Yanai sees his power reduced.

Below are the 3 new business units, each led by a new executive VP:

Storage Platforms, for everything that relates to engineering and manufacture of Symmetrix, Celerra and Clariion hardware. David Donatelli, 36, will head the unit. He was previously senior VP corporate marketing and new business development.
Open Software, the newest bee in EMC’s bonnet, to which it is committing significant resources these days. The division will be managed by Erez Ofer, 39, who is being rewarded for his efforts as SVP and chief software architect of the company.
Customer, for the distribution and support of EMC products. Frank Hauck, 42, will lead.

At the same time, the manufacturer announced that former VP of engineering, Moshe Yanai, has been named fellow and adviser to CEO Joseph Tucci for technology, not exactly a promotion, since Yanai will no longer have any role in operations. The one-time tank division commander in the Israeli army, considered by most to be a brilliant engineer, arrived in the company in 1987, where he became the father of Symmetrix, holding some 20 patents. According to the November 26 issue of Forbes Magazine, Yanai pockets 1% of all Symmetrix sales (with another 1% shared among his 5 lieutenants). Not bad, considering that close to 50,000 units have sold since 1991, for prices in the 6 and even 7 digits. His reassignment may be partly explained by the limited enthusiasm that greeted the most recently announced version of Symmetrix (while his percentage of sales may account for why there was so much resistance within EMC in the past to cutting prices, how do you explain the impulse to introduce a new model based on old architecture?).

Blast from the past: in a May 1996 InfoWorld article, 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe described a visit to EMC and his meeting with Yanai: “EMC’s VP of engineering, Moshe Yanai, is way ahead of me. EMC’s storage systems are high capacity, already up into the terabytes. Yanai said that EMC’s push into networking is all about economies of scale and storage consolidation.”

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 167 on December 2001 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.