8. The Evolving Relationship With Cisco

Dell EMC's relationship with Cisco didn't get any less complicated in 2016. Dell and Cisco have been bitter rivals in the server market for years, while EMC and Cisco have partnered closely, including on VCE, EMC's converged and hyper-converged infrastructure business.

Partners say they expect the Cisco relationship to continue to evolve, and they're happy to sell Cisco when customers want it and Dell EMC when customers want that. In 2016, hyper-convergence emerged as the primary battleground between Dell EMC and Cisco. Dell servers are the backbone of the Nutanix hyper-convergence solution, and while Cisco at one time underpinned much of VCE's portfolio, VCE began moving away from Cisco servers in 2015 and its VxRack and VxRail solutions will now be based on Dell PowerEdge servers.