EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) and Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) have extended their five-year partnership by two years -- a vote of confidence that indicates the deal is working out very well for both parties (see Dell, EMC Extend Alliance).
The companies, which signed their original agreement in October 2001, will now extend it through December 2008. Under the terms of the deal, Dell resells EMC products, primarily the Clariion midrange family, and has recently started manufacturing the low-end CX200 storage array (see Dell and EMC Do a Deal and EMC, Dell Keep Dancing).
Tony Prigmore, senior analyst at the Enterprise Storage Group Inc., says the deal extension reflects EMC's realization that Dell is its most efficient channel for selling into distributed, Windows-oriented environments.
"Right now, the energy it takes EMC to assist Dell in growing that business is a much better return than EMC figuring out how to do this with incremental partners, or by itself," he says.
EMC and Dell claim that -- in the 20 months since they hooked up -- they've landed more than 4,100 customers, including Brazil's Banco Santos, The Bombay Company, Computer Sciences CSC Ltd., Cox Communications Inc. (NYSE: COX), Mercedes-Benz, Precision Resource Corp., and Warburg Dillon Read (see Dell Plugs Cox Into EMC).