EMC's Tucci : Global economy hinges on US budget deal

EMC CEO Joe Tucci on Monday called for CEOs to put pressure on U.S. politicians to strike a budget deal, saying that the direction of the domestic and global economy depends on it.

"I've never seen a time when the rest of the world was looking to the U.S. for leadership more than now," Tucci said at the Techonomy 12 conference in Tucson, Arizona. "They want the U.S. to be successful. If we address the fiscal cliff problem adequately we'll have a decent 2013 globally."

In an onstage interview with Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick, Tucci said that CEOs need to put pressure on Congress to reach a bipartisan compromise that both raises revenues and balances the budget over time.

Tucci also extended his calls for partnership and compromise to the international level, saying that the U.S. and China need to cooperate and not fight, and that under these circumstances, "Europe won't be robust but it will be OK."

Kirkpatrick pressed Tucci for an assessment of the health of EMC's relationship with Cisco; some analysts claimed it was damaged when EMC's VMware bought network technology startup Nicira, which Cisco had eyed as an acquisition. But Tucci insisted the partnership is still strong.

"Cisco is our closest and most strategic partner, and we will have a long and prosperous relationship," Tucci said. Cloud computing and big data have enormous requirements for data communication, an area EMC is "not getting into, that's where we're going to partner with Cisco."

Tucci declined to fully answer a question about how EMC is making use of the technology acquired with application development consultancy Pivotal Labs, saying, "I don't want to give a lot away, we're going to be talking about it in a couple of months."

He called it a "fantastic acquisition" and promised more information shortly about how EMC will use the technology internally and externally.