High-end storage leader EMC Corp. is “not closing any doors” to expanding partner Dell Computer Corp.s manufacturing rights beyond EMCs midrange CX200 product, EMC President and CEO Joe Tucci said Monday.
In early 2003, Dell, of Round Rock, Texas, will begin manufacturing the CX200, considered by Hopkinton, Mass.s EMC to be a bare-bones version of its flagship midrange CX600, officials said. Whether Dell would manufacture other EMC products has been a concern of users since the partnership began a year ago.
EMC itself will also manufacture CX200s, as of early Dec., although Dell and resellers will handle most of the selling and support, officials said.
“Weve worked with Dell to kind of pool our supply chains. Weve trained over 2000 Dell service and sales reps,” Tucci said. Dell will build the systems in the United States, Ireland and Malaysia, President and COO Kevin Rollins said.
“Were not interested in buying EMC, and I dont think EMCs interested in being sold,” Rollins added, referring to ongoing merger rumors about the companies.
Dells experience with Intel Corp.s IA-64 chips, 8-way processor systems and modular blade computers are all examples of Dell successfully learning to manufacture more complicated products than its traditional desktop computers, Russ Holt, vice president and general manager of Dells Enterprise Systems Group, told eWEEK.
The CX200 starts at about $30,000, EMC officials said.
Other questions remain to be answered. “Its possible that Serial ATA drives will be used in that product in the future, and Im still trying to figure out whether EMCs going to be emphasizing the manufacturer,” said analysts Shebly Seyrafi, of A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc., in St. Louis, Mo.
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