HOPKINTON, Mass., and REDMOND, Wash. — March 3, 2006 — Building on a long-standing relationship of integrating enterprise-class systems, software, services and shared best practices, EMC Corp. and Microsoft Corp. today announced a significant expansion of their alliance to further simplify the delivery of information life-cycle management (ILM) solutions for Microsoft® application environments. EMC and Microsoft will work together to develop and deliver a portfolio of integrated solutions that will help business customers cost-effectively manage information on the Microsoft server platform.
The expansion includes significant investments and commitments by both companies to joint solution delivery and sales engagement support to accelerate customer adoption and simplify deployment of Microsoft’s Exchange Server 2003 and SQL Server™ 2005 Enterprise Edition. In addition, a worldwide network of partner account managers will be established to drive predictable joint engagement and solution delivery.
EMC and Microsoft have committed to this new framework, which will facilitate the delivery of an ongoing portfolio of joint solutions. The alliance will initially focus on the following three initiatives:
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Simplified Exchange Upgrade and Deployment. Assessment, design and implementation services enhance the Exchange Server 2003 collaboration architecture and accelerate the implementation and upgrade process. An optimized information infrastructure with a centralized e-mail operation will enable customers to back up and rapidly restore Exchange Server information for disaster recovery, archiving and compliance.
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SQL Server 2005 Upgrade and Deployment. Database design and implementation services streamline customer upgrades to or new deployments of SQL Server 2005. This solution also results in an information infrastructure optimized for scalability, performance and availability.
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Accelerated Lotus Notes to Exchange Migration. Migration assessment, design and implementation services help Lotus Notes customers migrate to Exchange Server 2003 on an optimized EMC information infrastructure.
Tony Prigmore, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, said, “To maximize return on IT investment and lower risk, organizations are increasingly looking for more tightly integrated application and infrastructure solutions coupled with services expertise to help them integrate all the components. The extension of the EMC and Microsoft alliance leverages the leadership and expertise of the two companies to address customer demands for simple, integrated application and infrastructure solutions.”
“For years EMC and Microsoft have worked together to provide customers of all sizes with the best information management and storage solutions optimized for their Microsoft environments,” said Howard Elias, EMC executive vice president of Global Marketing and Corporate Development. “Customers are asking for complete, more integrated solutions, including applications, infrastructure and services delivery expertise. With our strengthened alliance and EMC’s expanded Microsoft services practice, EMC and Microsoft are addressing this need. Our goal is to help mutual customers achieve a faster return on their IT investments with lower risk and improved access to information across their Microsoft application environments.”
“Today’s announcement is yet another milestone in our collaborative efforts to deliver enterprise-class solutions that address our customers’ most critical business application needs,” said Bob Muglia, senior vice president, Microsoft. “EMC and Microsoft are enhancing the delivery of joint solutions by our skilled service professionals, and this commitment will enable customers to optimize their infrastructure with high-performance servers and applications.”
In January 2006, EMC significantly expanded the capabilities of its Microsoft Practice within Technology Solutions, its professional services organization, through the acquisition of North America-based Internosis, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and seven-time Microsoft Partner of the Year. The EMC Microsoft Practice delivers services and solutions focused on strategy, application infrastructure, application development and managed services for Microsoft environments. EMC Technology Solutions brings a unique mix of information infrastructure experience and strategic business focus to give customers a full range of consulting, implementation and managed services designed to accelerate customers’ ILM strategies.
About EMC
EMC Corporation (NYSE: “EMC”) is the world leader in products, services, and solutions for information storage and management that help organizations extract the maximum value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle. Information about EMC’s products and services can be found at www.emc.com.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
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 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
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