EMC named leader in storage software market for seventh consecutive year

EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC), the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, was the number one provider of storage software for the seventh consecutive year in 2006 and led the worldwide storage software market in total revenue for the 16th consecutive quarter, according to the latest IDC Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker, March 2007.

Additionally, EMC was among the five fastest growing data protection and recovery vendors in year-over-year revenue growth, nearly tripling the market growth rate during the fourth quarter. [a, b]

For both the full year and the fourth quarter of 2006, EMC led in four storage software categories, including storage replication, storage device management, storage infrastructure and storage management.

In the storage device management software segment in 2006, EMC grew revenue to almost seven times the revenue share of its closest competitor. According to EMC, the company achieved 20% annual growth in software licence and maintenance revenue during 2006, when combining its storage software market leadership and other areas of software leadership like virtualisation, enterprise content management and archive, resource management and information security.

"Our customers continually look for ways to drive their information lifecycle management strategies and strengthen their information infrastructures," said Frank Touwen, CEO EMC South Africa.

"Our ongoing leadership in storage software will allow us to not only expand our existing storage offerings, but to further innovate and integrate technologies such as data de-duplication into solutions that maximise our latest storage platforms, alleviate our customers' IT complexities, better leverage their existing storage resources and improve their backup, recovery and archival of information."

[a] Source: IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker Q4 2006; EMC has had the number one revenue share in storage software since the inception of the IDC Storage Software Tracker in Q4 2002; all comparisons included in this release are year over year unless noted; EMC is reported as the combined entity of EMC and Legato prior to CYQ4 2003.

Source: IDC Worldwide Software Market Forecaster

This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Federal Securities Laws. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) risks associated with acquisitions and investments, including the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (v) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (vi) component and product quality and availability; (vii) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (viii) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (ix) war or acts of terrorism; (x) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (xi) fluctuating currency exchange rates; and (xii) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC's filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.