I work as an Implementation Engineer with a VAR (Value Added Reseller). This merger probably has the largest impact among partners and engineers. There are a few things I have concerns on.

1. Affecting customers. Dell/EMC has been very vocal on its commitment to reduce the impact to customers but I cannot see this merger not affect them in multiple ways. Especially reduction in choice. The fact is DELL/EMC will be playing much nicer with Dell servers, and maybe less-nice with IBM/HP/Oracle/etc.

2. Distribution channels must converge, as well as warehouse and wholesale sectors.

3. Convergence of support personnel will happen which will increase the burden on all of the installation technicians in the resulting company, as well as its partners.

4. Let’s face it, Dell/EMC will have to down-size to be economically stable in the future. Layoffs will happen just to make profit and pay-down the investors that have contributed to the buyout.

This is going to be a difficult question that entirely depends on what you are planning to do.

If you plan to learn business based programs I would suggest OpenSolaris. It is more in line with big business than any *BSD will ever be. You will find that fortune 500 companies use Oracle, Symantec Veritas products (cluster service, Volume manager, NetBackup etc..), or require Solaris for other business applications. The only other major *nix flavors in big business is HP-UX, AIX, and Linux. For the most part HP-UX and AIX are going bye bye and being replaced by big Linux boxes.

On the other hand, if you like the Web and want to learn to program, Try out FreeBSD. It has a much more open structure and an open user base that is more than willing to help solve complex problems.

Hope this helps.