Dell, EMC extend and expand strategic alliance

In addition to extending the partnership, Dell and EMC will add the EMC Celerra NX4 storage system to the portfolio of Dell | EMC networked storage systems.

"By broadening and extending our deep alliance Dell and EMC are able to deliver to customers fully integrated datacenter solutions as the preeminent storage partners to customers worldwide," said Michael Dell, chairman and CEO. "Users and Enterprises in the Connected Era have an insatiable appetite for storage. Today's economic realities place an emphasis on efficient solutions that consolidate and virtualize - which through our long-standing partnership we are well positioned to deliver."

Joe Tucci, EMC Chairman, President and CEO, said:

"This relationship had its genesis during a challenging time in the economy and a desire by both companies to provide cost-effective solutions to customers who still had to manage ever increasing amounts of information. The same is true today, and while Dell and EMC are both very different than they were in 2001, we are committed to our mutual customers and to delivering industry-leading technologies that can provide them maximum return on their investment."

The fact that customers derive value from the Dell/EMC relationship has been demonstrated with more than 60,000 solutions deployed to date. To provide additional choice for customers, the EMC Celerra NX4, introduced by EMC in August this year, is expected to join the Dell storage portfolio in early 2009. The Celerra NX4 is a cost-effective unified storage solution that helps customers consolidate NAS, iSCSI and Fibre Channel technologies on one platform.

Dell and EMC formed their alliance in October 2001 to help customers reduce complexity and more effectively store, manage and protect their information through networked storage. From the outset, Dell and EMC implemented a model of collaboration to utilize each other's strengths in order to deliver compelling value to customers. Highlights of Dell and EMC's collaboration in 2008 include:
• The new lineup of Dell | EMC CX4 networked storage systems introduced in August are designed to incorporate the latest technologies in drives, connectivity, processing power, thin provisioning and security. It is the first midrange storage array in the market to support state-of-the-art solid state disks (SSDs).
• The release in September of a new scalable data warehousing solution as part of EMC and Dell's collaboration on the Oracle Optimized Warehouse initiative.
• In January, Dell introduced the Dell AX4-5 as a cost effective mid-range array that can scale up to 60 drives and support advanced features like snapshot and replication.
• Last month, the two companies collaborated in the area of data de-duplication, one of the fastest growing segments within the storage market. Dell and EMC are working together to help customers reduce backup costs and improve efficiency with target based de-duplication technologies.