The same can be said about engineering and sales alignment with regard to existing products and internal projects. Sales and engineering should be considered upstream alongside the tech review.

But you should not wait until post acqusition to begin thinking about the technology fit. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Not only does accounting need to be aligned but so do engineering and sales teams. Unfortunately too often this is seen as needed but not strategic, so the acquisitions are slowly integrated, over years, with for example two product groups building similar products.

This becomes especially critical you’re your acquiring companies at the pace EMC is going.

EMC’s CSD and CTRB might be novel within the technology industry but none of this is news to competent private investment firms such as Cerberus, TPG, or GS Partners.

I should add that the success of a technology review depends upon the competence of the review board. I do not doubt the competence of EMC’s CTRB, but I have been both witness to [and a victim of] the incompetence of other such groups in the tech industry.