Did EMC Management smoke breakfast this week?

That is a reasonable conclusion after reading what Joe Tucci said at the EMC World event in Boston - 'Journey into the Private Cloud' as in cloud of smoke?

I understand that every Fortune 2000 IT company feels compelled to have a 'cloud strategy'. It's the new Black. However when a strategy is presented in a way that it communicates alienation of some big technology partners (HP/Cisco) whose gear EMC's relies on in some form or fashion to move the data on and off EMC arrays, then I sit back and wonder WTF were they thinking?

Here is the quote I am using from ZDNet:

Tucci also criticized the data center verticalization strategy that companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Cisco are taking, saying it will lead to a new kind of lock-in that will ultimately lend itself to inefficiency. He said EMC’s private cloud strategy swaps out verticalization with virtualization and allows all of your data center solution providers — even EMC competitors — to plug in.

So here are the things that make me glad I am not a shareholder and glad I am a customer:

1. Leading to a new kind of lock in is what you want Joe. That means people like your stuff, they buy your stuff and become dependent on your stuff to function. It's a nice virtually guaranteed revenue stream.
2. As a customer, its great that I can now try other storage offerings from my competitors in a cloud, so when you decide to change the strategy to something more realistic and come back to get me to 'lock in', I now have options. Options that you gave to me, and your competitors. Thanks.

Look, EMC has said time and time again it wants to be an arms dealer. They could care less who wins on the battlefield so long as bullets keep flying and they don't get bloody. The issue with this approach is it's non-committal. What are you for? What are you doing vs. what are you not doing? What do you believe vs. how many buzzwords need to be thrown around before people see that you have no clue about what you're doing.

So Joe, if you are listening or should have one of your colleagues stumble across my blog - you don't need a cloud strategy. Cloud is an exercise in accounting. It's mainframe all over again. Take a box, itemize its components and lease it back to the user on a per unit basis. If you want a solid private cloud strategy, call me, and I will pull together leasing partners who will chop up a VPlex faster than a Benihana hibachi cook and lease them out, protecting your market cap, serving your customers, and still being an arms dealer.

In other words EMC needs a cloud strategy that isn't about cloud. It's about EMC's products being the best damn storage products they can make and enabling different ways for customers to figure that out.