ENGINEERING

AUSTIN, TX -- Dell and EMC today announced a five-year, multi-billion dollar strategic alliance agreement to accelerate the growth of both companies' storage systems businesses in a market expected to reach $100 billion by 2005. Under the agreement, Dell and EMC will co-brand EMC's CLARiiON line of enterprise storage systems. The alliance will make Dell the leading reseller of the CLARiiON product line, which will become Dell's standard offering for storage area networks (SAN) and high-end network-attached storage (NAS) installations. The relationship enables Dell to address a broader range of customer needs with storage products that provide additional enterprise-class features, including support for Unix operating systems. For EMC, the relationship builds on its strategy to work with partners to significantly increase its market presence in the rapidly growing Windows NT and Windows 2000 storage markets. "Dell and EMC are both sharply focused companies in the world of information technology," said Sean Derrington, senior program director at META Group. "This is a highly complementary relationship that will greatly benefit both firms and their customers." For services that accompany storage products, Dell will augment its existing, award-winning Premier Enterprise Services with methodologies, tools, best practices and customer training programs from EMC. Representatives from EMC's renowned global services organization will also support and train Dell service personnel on the technical support and installation of EMC systems. The companies have also agreed to work together when opportunities in Dell's enterprise customer base require the advanced features and functions of EMC's flagship Symmetrix line of enterprise storage systems and software. The companies will collaborate on the definition and explore the joint development of future open, networked storage systems. Additionally, Dell and EMC will look for opportunities to use Dell's procurement and manufacturing capabilities in the production of EMC CLARiiON products. "We expect Dell's direct sales model will increase EMC's reach and capability to better service enterprise-class CLARiiON customers, including a much broader set of small and medium-sized businesses," said Joseph Tucci, EMC president and CEO. "The midrange information storage market alone last year was about a $15 billion opportunity, and we were barely scratching the surface with an industry-leading product. The new relationship with Dell will give us an edge to more rapidly gain market share." "We believe this agreement effectively doubles Dell's market opportunity in the data storage business," said Kevin Rollins, Dell president and COO. "EMC's storage systems complement our own portfolio of enterprise computing systems and services, and customers will be the beneficiaries." Dell will continue to offer its industry-leading PowerVault direct- and network-attached storage systems and EMC will continue to offer its industry-leading Symmetrix and CLARiiON family of enterprise storage systems and software, directly and through partners, to customers worldwide. Dell plans to begin offering the EMC products, which include the FC4500, FC5300, FC4700 and IP4700, to customers in November.