A newly announced five-year agreement between Dell and EMC is bound to see the local and international storage market undergo dramatic changes, according to Sean Wainer, enterprise product manager at Dell SA.
"Dell`s competence in direct sales and manufacturing, combined with EMC`s proven storage engineering capabilities, means high quality products at competitive prices - factors that will sway loyalties within the storage market."
Wainer believes that this agreement positions Dell to challenge Compaq`s current spot in the low-end and mid-range market, as Dell gains a well branded, competitive mid-range storage portfolio.
The relationship builds upon Dell`s existing storage business by adding new products, enhanced services, and opening new segments for Dell. Wainer says the partnership will see a partial replacement of the Dell storage product set, but, additionally, it allows Dell to enter the midrange SAN and Unix sector, where previously the company had no significant presence.
"EMC is very successful in the Unix open system environment, as well as in the mainframe arena. All-in-all, it accelerates Dell`s ability to consult, deploy, train and support complex storage solutions."
In accordance with the Dell/EMC agreement, Dell will OEM EMC`s CLARiiON storage arrays, FC5300, FC4500, FC4700 and IP4700. The OEMed products from EMC will be co-branded as Dell|EMC. Wainer adds that there are also some new Dell|EMC products coming down the line.
Gerhard van der Merwe, district manager of EMC SA, is of the opinion that EMC now gains a new sales channel to more effectively penetrate the midrange storage market. "EMC historically has focussed mostly on the high-end storage sector, however the local SME segment has been labelled by analysts as the fastest growing in the market. I believe our new alliance will enable us to access a larger part of this sector. Dell also has extensive experience in this area, as well as a dedicated SME business division. We will certainly leverage their knowledge in this sphere."
Additionally, both companies will aggressively pursue opportunities to leverage Dell`s supply chain efficiencies and manufacturing ability.
However, being able to provide a complete solution is perhaps the area where local customers will realise the most benefit. Says Van der Merwe: "A total solution is clearly more cost effective. With one company supplying and installing the equipment, total cost of ownership is greatly reduced.
"It is early days yet, but both EMC and Dell are hoping to see a broader penetration of the local storage market, that will naturally influence the current market share scenario, with the scales hopefully tipping in Dell/EMC`s favour."
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