EMC Corp Unveils a Range of New Storage Systems

A storage equipment leader, EMC Corp said an Internet-fueled explosion of email and other corporate data has led data storage to replace computer processor power as the main focus of new spending among business technology buyers.

EMC executives told analysts and fund managers crowded into the company's annual product briefing here that the powerful server computers traditionally used to manage the flow of information around offices are fast becoming irrelevant.

At the meeting, EMC unveiled a range of new storage systems, software and network equipment that company officials said was already shipping to customers and would account for a "significant" proportion of revenue for its current quarter.

"Today, we clearly believe that servers are becoming peripherals," Michael Ruettgers, president and chief executive of the Hopkinton, Mass.-based company, said of a role-reversal in which storage systems are displacing computer functions.

He highlighted statistics from market research firm International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass. that estimated 80 percent of corporate technology spending in 2003 will go to pay for storage equipment vs. 20 percent for servers. Fifty-four percent of corporate spending in 1999 went to storage equipment, with the rest to computers and the like.

"We've talked about a two-year-lead," Jim Rothnie, senior vice president of product management, said of the technology head-start EMC has long claimed to hold over its computer maker rivals. "We now have a three-year-lead," he said.

To reinforce its lead, Ruettgers said the company was ready to spend $2-1/2 billion on research and development on new and enhanced products over the next two years, up from the roughly $2 billion analysts were expecting. By contrast, EMC spent $5 billion on research and development during the prior 10 years.

EMC Unveils New Product Lines, Says Lead Growing Over Rivals

At the meeting, EMC unveiled a range of new storage systems, software and network equipment that company officials said was already shipping to customers and would account for a "significant" proportion of revenue for its current quarter.

The Symmetrix 8000, an upgrade of its flagship product line, strings together hundreds of hard disk drives in a single system in an oversize box the size of three side-by-side refrigerators. The 8000 includes the world's highest capacity storage system, capable of holding 19 trillion bytes of data.

It offers twice the capacity of EMC's current mainstay product, the Symmetrix 3000 series, and three to four times the storage transaction performance of rivals, officials said.

EMC also introduced a range of new software to more efficiently manage the flow of data across corporate networks. One new program, TimeFinder 4.1, allows EMC storage systems to make eight instant copies of a database at different points in time, allowing speedy data recovery in case a system fails.

EMC's strategy is to develop products suited to a variety of different business operations then linking them all together in a single, organizationwide system that offers office employees access to data located anywhere in the company.