Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

EMC CLARiiON NAMED 'MOST VALUABLE PRODUCT' AT SWC 2003

EMC Corporation has announced that the CLARiiON CX series of networked storage systems received the MVP (Most Valuable Product) award at this year's Storage World Conference, a customer event focused on data storage networking and management. The popular CLARiiON CX series was overwhelmingly selected by end-users, industry analysts and online voters as Most Valuable Product in the "Disk and Disk Subsystems" category over all other entries, including Hitachi Data Systems' 9980V and Network Appliance's FAS900 series. EMC's high-end platform series, Symmetrix DMX, was introduced in February and was therefore too new to be considered in the contest.

"Storage World's inaugural MVP Awards recognize the storage networking industry's best products," said Daniel Delshad, Conference Chairman. "The response from our voters was tremendously strong for CLARiiON CX. It's a clear indication that an upgradeable product line combined with robust yet easy-to-use software offers customers an incredible value proposition."

Introduced in August of 2002, the CLARiiON CX series of storage systems has quickly become the benchmark against which others are measured in the mid-tier storage market. Designed as a fully compatible series of networked storage systems, CLARiiON CX systems share a common architecture, components, FLARE operating system and management software. This family approach to storage provides customers with a clear upgrade path from the entry-level CX200 up through the CX400 and CX600 systems, while data remains in place. CLARiiON also employs the most feature-rich portfolio of software applications and high-end functionality in its competitive tier.

Recently, EMC enhanced CLARiiON's flexibility by offering customers the option to utilize ATA disk technology within the CX series architecture. Now, for the first time, customers are able to mix any combination of high-performance Fibre Channel drives with affordable ATA drives in the same system. In addition, CLARiiON customers can manage these multiple tiers of storage from the same software application.

David Donatelli, EMC's executive vice president of Storage Platforms Operations, said, "The CLARiiON CX series has established a new standard for mid-tier storage -- offering superior functionality, compatible upgradeability and aggressive price/performance in a growing market segment. This award speaks volumes because it represents the collective voice of customers and what they like about CLARiiON. CLARiiON CX delivers the functionality they need at an attractive price."

CLARiiON CX has achieved tremendous growth over the past nine months. In the most recent quarter, customers purchased more than $200 million worth of CLARiiON CX storage systems and associated platform software such as Navisphere, SnapView and MirrorView. This performance enabled CLARiiON to gain market share and accelerate its pace as the fastest-growing offering in the mid-tier storage market.

About the Awards

Storage World's MVP Awards recognize the storage industry's best products in the following categories: Backup Hardware, Disk and Disk Subsystems, Storage Management Software, Networking Equipment and Data Protection Software. More than 125 submissions were received for the awards this year, from which a panel of judges from analyst firms Gartner, The Enterprise Storage Group and Evaluator Group selected the finalists.