EMC Chief Executive Joe Tucci is in Seattle today, celebrating the grand opening of the company’s new 140,000 square foot “Center of Excellence” in the heart of Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood. It is a big bet by EMC on Seattle, which operates similar engineering facilities near Boston, Raleigh-Durham and Silicon Valley. It also follows the company’s $2.25 billion buyout of Isilon Systems last year.
But Seattle has something special, headquarters to two of the biggest cloud computing companies in the world.
During a press conference today in Seattle, backed by a banner that said “History and the Future Come Together,” I asked Tucci about putting a stake in the sand in the backyards of Amazon.com and Microsoft. In his view, that only favors Seattle, which he said is fast becoming a hub of cloud computing.
“They feed off each other, and while you compete — while you compete for talent, while you compete in the market — I think there is also a goodness that comes because some of that flow of talent and influx of talent, like Sujal (Patel) moved here because he wanted to be part of something, I think makes the whole industry stronger and it will be great for Seattle. Believe it or not, I look at that as a positive, not a negative.”
Here’s a video of Tucci’s prepared remarks in which he discusses the “tremendous coup” of acquiring Isilon and expanding in Seattle.
“This is a beautiful city. It is a terrific city, and you can count that we will continue expansion here,” he said.
Previously on GeekWire: Seattle’s Pioneer Square has tech, needs tribe… Sujal Patel’s call to action for the Seattle tech community.