Melissa Webster, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass., agreed that layoffs are a predictable part of digesting acquisition and noted that EMC has almost doubled in size - from 17,500 employees to 31,000 - in the past three years, mostly as a result of its acquisitions. Integrating the acquisitions more completely should improve EMC's ability to serve its users better so they don't feel like they're dealing with several companies, she said.

Users from another EMC customer company that had been using VMware, eRoom and Documentum products before those companies were acquired by EMC, said they hope EMC will consider more bundling of products under a single license in order to reduce the total cost of ownership. The users, who asked not to be named, said bundling products -- instead of charging the premium prices that new customers have to pay -- would make it more attractive for existing customers to buy other EMC products.

Lev Gonick, CIO at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said he hasn't run into as many problems as some users have reported, but he credited his EMC district sales manager with that. Recently the university purchased an EMC Symmetrix DMX storage array, Networker software and Documentum software, and the purchase process started out with three pitches from three sales teams. "We made it clear to the district manager that it had to be one PO and it had to be simple, and he made it happen," said Gonick.

Scott Saunders, director of MIS at Ion Media Networks Inc., a broadcast television network based in West Palm Beach, Fla., said that although his organization uses EMC storage products, the hardware comes from Dell Inc. and the support is from Unisys Corp. He said he hopes that EMC's streamlining will help improve the company's record-keeping, and that he would like to be able to have direct contact with the company again so he can have access to EMC's full breadth of products.