Dell and EMC extend alliance

Dell and EMC today extended their five-year, multi-billion dollar strategic alliance by two years.

This alliance is being made for the delivery of networked storage solutions for organisations of all sizes.

The original agreement was signed in October 2001 and will now extend through December 2008.

Since forming the alliance, more than 4,100 customers worldwide have chosen Dell/EMC storage systems.

The two companies have also collaborated on the introduction of new products and technologies and achieved significant milestones, including:

* A manufacturing agreement, enabling Dell to manufacture Dell/EMC CX200 storage systems worldwide;

* Joint services training of over 2,000 Dell professionals;

* A new series of Dell|EMC networked storage systems spanning customer needs from entry-level to enterprise-class;

* The industry's first storage area network (SAN) system to integrate low cost ATA and high performance Fibre Channel technologies which can dramatically lower storage costs;

* A comprehensive suite of storage software to help ease management of storage systems and offer advanced disaster recovery benefits; and

* The acceleration of SAN and network attached storage (NAS) convergence, allowing customers to leverage their SAN investment when implementing NAS to provide greater capacity and scalability.

Steve Duplessie, founder of industry analyst firm Enterprise Storage Group, said: "This deal was always a match made in heaven.

"EMC's leading storage products and Dell's mastery of the direct model have been perfect for each other.

"The extension, coming after only two years of a five-year deal, tells me that the companies and their customers are more than happy with the progress to date."