EMC could have just hired them as consultants to teach them the ways of being 'more agile' with their product set. hard to find a business reason behind this other than buying them for their non tangible 'processes".
What would have been in it for the Pivotal guys to do consulting to EMC? EMC wanted a solid team of next-gen developers. My impression was that Pivotal was doing fairly well so probably insisted on a good price for their company.
Not sure man. You could be right. They could be building the foundation to build next gen apps that better mesh all the product in the EMC product portfolio. Only time will tell.