LAS VEGAS — Dell is ready to pull the trigger on new systems once the merger with EMC closes, CEO Michael Dell said during a media session at VMworld yesterday.

Specifically, the new products are Dell Engineered Solutions, a term referring to pre-bundled hardware and software. In other words, they're appliances ready to be plugged into a network.

Dell already offers such prefab systems for VxRail and VxRack, VMware’s designs for hyperconverged infrastructure. And as the EMC acquisition closes (remember, VMware is 80 percent owned by EMC), "you're going to see, on Day One ... a whole new [set of] engineered solutions that we've been building together," Michael Dell said.

VMware is one of the most important pieces of the EMC acquisition, to the point where EMC shareholders are due to get shares in a VMware tracking stock as part of the deal. During the media session, which included VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger, the executives reiterated that VMware will remain a publicly traded company and will retain its independence.

Approval from China is the last major hurdle left before the merger can close. Dell and EMC had said a year ago, when the deal was announced, that they expected to finalize everything by the end of October, and the companies remain on track to make that goal, Michael Dell said.

VMworld's opening keynote on Monday included appearances by large customers such as Citi and GE, part of the message being that these companies are OK with VMware getting essentially acquired into Dell.

The deal would bring some immediate benefits to VMware. For example, Dell has a longer reach and can boost VMware's presence in important countries such as India, Gelsinger said.

There's also the reason why Dell went private in the first place: "We'll have enormous scale and flexibility to make investments with a longer-term time horizon," Michael Dell said, referring to the VMware-Dell combination.