Following a worldwide agreement for Silicon Graphics (SGI) to resell EMC`s Symmetrix storage subsystems and software, the duo`s local subsidiaries have agreed to work more closely to the mutual benefit of their respective customers. John Jordaan, manager channel & partner sales at EMC SA, says the arrangement gives further impetus to EMC`s push into the high-end UNIX market. "Contrary to popular belief, SGI servers are far more than just good graphics systems and are becoming sought after in performance-intensive applications such as Internet hosting and data warehousing," he adds. James Chiweshe, country manager of SGI SA, says the agreement suits his company well. "Our core business is to build high-performance servers, offering exceptional return on investment (ROI), using our own cache-coherent non-uniform memory access (CC:NUMA) architecture. It made sense for us to select a storage partner who is also a leader in its field rather than reinvent the wheel," he continues. To this end the two companies have signed a three-year, worldwide agreement that enables SGI to resell EMC`s storage solutions along with its high-end UNIX servers. Both Jordaan and Chiweshe see the deal as mutually beneficial. "While EMC`s Enterprise Storage continues to blur the line between strictly mainframe or open systems products, the truth is that EMC has long been the leader in the mainframe market and has been the leader in open systems for two years," says Jordaan. "This agreement will extend EMC`s leadership in the enterprise storage market." Chiweshe says, due to its success in high-end graphics markets, SGI is erroneously regarded as a niche player. "The explosion of data warehousing and Internet-based applications created the ideal opportunity for the company to shed this image once and for all," he says. "What we needed was a storage partner which could deliver the same high levels of scalability, modularity and ROI provided by SGI`s CC:NUMA architecture." Citing the synergy between the local subsidiaries as beneficial, Chiweshe says their respective client bases are complementary. "EMC SA is the leader in the enterprise storage market, while SGI is strong in the world of high-end UNIX," he comments.
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