Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

BENETTON UNITES INFORMATION WITH EMC AUTOMATED NETWORKED STO

EMC Corporation has announced that Benetton Group SpA, a worldwide leader in casual clothing, sportswear and equipment, has consolidated its product design, enterprise e-mail, inventory management, sales and financial information onto EMC Automated Networked Storage. The infrastructure is based on EMC CLARiiON networked storage and software and allows Benetton employees and vendors to share information more easily and reliably, increase speed and reduce costs for product design, sales and distribution.

Terry Phipps, Benetton Group's Consulting Chief Information Officer, said, "Achieving our goal of global data integration of product design, industrialization, manufacturing, commercial activities and distribution requires seamless information sharing among multiple departments in geographically diverse locations. Consolidating our information onto an EMC storage area network (SAN) is an important part of our efforts to bring products to market more quickly while reducing our product development costs."

Benetton's SAN leverages EMC CLARiiON networked storage systems and Connectrix Fibre Channel switches. Benetton has implemented a range of EMC storage software to simplify information management and provide local and remote replication for data sharing and improved information availability. EMC Global Services designed and implemented the solution without any interruption to daily business operations.

Benetton chose EMC over the competition because of EMC's proven software, openness and customer service and support. Phipps said, "EMC allowed us to dramatically decrease the number of servers in our environment and provide better service to our employees. CLARiiON's interoperability provided seamless installation and migration of data, without service interruption. With a consistent and scalable infrastructure, we will be able to incorporate new technologies down the road."

The CLARiiON SAN is central to Benetton's applications, enabling the consolidation of 1,500 Lotus Notes users in five geographically dispersed departments to one centralized location at Benetton's headquarters in Ponzano, Italy. Additionally, Benetton has centralized its enterprise data warehouse and Oracle and NetWare databases, which allow designers to choose colors and models and facilitate the creation of prototypes. Benetton Group also plans to consolidate new ERP applications onto its EMC networked storage infrastructure.

Chuck Hollis, EMC vice president, Storage Platforms Marketing, said, "Today, customers are looking for a storage solution that blends rock solid reliability with market leading performance and functionality, but at a lower cost. CLARiiON is optimized to meet the growing management and performance requirements throughout Benetton's environment and is extending Benetton's information infrastructure beyond the data center into Benetton's stores worldwide."

About Benetton

Benetton Group is present in 120 countries around the world. It operates in the clothing sector with the well-established United Colors of Benetton and Sisley brands, and in the sportswear and equipment sector through the leading brands Playlife, Nordica, Prince, Rollerblade and Killer Loop. The Group's commercial network of 5,000 stores around the world is increasingly focused on large floor-space megastores offering high-quality customer services and now generates an annual turnover of 2.1 billion euros, net of retail sales.

About EMC

EMC Corporation is a world leader in information storage systems, software, networks and services, providing automated networked storage solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to better and more cost-effectively manage, protect and share their information. More information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.

Contact: Anne Pace, EMC Corporation, 508-293-7932, pace--anne@emc.com.