The musical chairs exercise within EMC's top executive ranks continued this week as the firm announced that Intel's Pat Gelsinger joined EMC as president and chief operating officer, EMC Information Infrastructure product portfolio.

The announcement set off speculation about top management succession plans, because EMC chief executive Joe Tucci, 62, also said he will remain as an active chairman and CEO only through 2012.

At the same time, EMC said it is expanding the executive office of the Chairman to include Gelsinger; Howard Elias, president and COO EMC Information Infrastructure and Cloud Services; and David Goulden, executive vice president and chief financial officer. Bill Teuber, EMC vice chairman, has been serving in the Chairman's office along with Tucci.

At Intel, Gelsinger, 48, had a long and fruitful business relationship with EMC, marketing its chips for many EMC storage products. He worked closely with Tucci while at Intel. In a statement welcoming Gelsinger, Tucci said: "Pat's three decades of technical and general management leadership experience will serve EMC's customers well as they build out and blend their information infrastructures."

Tucci has been at the helm of EMC for seven years, after having invigorated a struggling Wang Laboratories. David Strohm, EMC lead director, said the board was "delighted with Joe's willingness" to continue to lead EMC and notes that under Tucci's leadership, EMC has maintained "its clear market leadership in storage, security, and infrastructure management."

EMC's top management ranks were shaken up earlier this year when David Donatelli, a top EMC executive who was thought by some to be destined to one day lead EMC, resigned to take a top job at HP.

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