<P> Dell EMC (EMC Corporation until 2016) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, United States . Dell EMC sells data storage, information security, virtualization, analytics, cloud computing and other products and services that enable organizations to store, manage, protect, and analyze data . Dell EMC's target markets include large companies and small - and medium - sized businesses across various vertical markets . The company's stock (as EMC Corporation) was added to the New York Stock Exchange on April 6, 1986, and was also listed on the S&P 500 index . </P> <P> EMC had over 70,000 employees and was the world's largest provider of data - storage systems by market share, competing against NetApp, IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Hitachi Data Systems (arranged in descending order of external data - storage market share). Joseph M. Tucci had served as EMC's chief executive since January 2001 and chairman of the board of directors since January 2006; he joined the company in 2000 as president and chief operating officer . Tucci was also chairman of the board of VMware Corporation and chairman of the board of Pivotal Software, which are partially owned by EMC . On October 12, 2015, Dell Inc. announced that it would acquire EMC in a cash - and - stock deal valued at $67 billion--the largest - ever acquisition in the technology industry . The merger closed on September 7, 2016 . EMC has been renamed to Dell EMC as a result of the merger . The EMC stands for the founders Egan, Marino & Curly. . </P> <P> EMC, founded in 1979 by Richard Egan, Roger Marino & John Curly (the E, M & C in EMC), introduced its first 64 - kilobyte memory boards for the Prime Computer in 1981 and continued with the development of memory boards for other computer types . In the mid-1980s the company expanded beyond memory to other computer data storage types and networked storage platforms . EMC began shipping its flagship product, the Symmetrix, in 1990 . Symmetrix was the main reason for EMC's rapid growth in the 1990s, both in size and value, from a company valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars to a multi-billion company . </P> <P> Michael Ruettgers joined EMC in 1988 and served as CEO from 1992 until January 2001 . Under Ruettgers' leadership, EMC revenues grew from $120 million to nearly $9 billion 10 years later, and the company shifted its focus from memory boards to storage systems . Ruettgers was named one of BusinessWeek's "World's Top 25 Executives"; one of the "Best Chief Executive Officers in America" by Worth magazine; and one of Network World's "25 Most Powerful People in Networking". </P>

What does emc in dell emc stand for