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Dell and enterprise storage vendor EMC celebrated the one-year anniversary of their alliance with the launch of a low-end storage system. The partners also say Dell will manufacture the new product, in a move that brings the companies even closer.

Dell and EMC executives unveiled on Monday the Clariion CX 200, a new entry-level storage product that they worked together to develop. Joe Tucci, president and chief executive officer of EMC, and Kevin Rollins, president and chief operating officer of Dell, made the announcement. The executives said that Dell will manufacture the Clariion CX 200 in Dell's U.S., Malaysia, and Ireland plants.

"We are extremely pleased with the progress and future (of this relationship)," Tucci said, during a conference call with press and analysts. "We are absolutely convinced our future will be very bright."

Sharing Projects

Dell and EMC in October last year formed a five-year, multibillion-dollar alliance to sell the co-branded EMC Clariion portfolio of storage systems. Though EMC leads the market for high-end storage, it turned to Dell for help selling smaller storage systems to medium-sized companies. Initially only a reseller pact, the relationship has since been extended to include product development and manufacturing.

Dell and EMC have also worked together on a project providing computer systems to the National Football League for Super Bowl XXXVI. The NFL installed Dell servers and storage systems from Dell and EMC. The CX 200 is the third in a line of Clariion CX Fibre Channel arrays for midsize companies and branch offices. EMC earlier this month introduced the Clariion CX 400, following the August launch of the CX 600.

The CX 200 will be available worldwide from December. Pricing information and technical details were not immediately available.

New Dell Venture?

The close links between the companies have prompted some analysts to question whether or not Dell would acquire EMC.

"No. We are not interested in buying EMC, and I think EMC is not interested in being sold," Rollins said, in response to an analyst's question.

Tucci said that right now EMC is not interested in merging with Dell because it doesn't want to deal with the integration challenges a deal like that would bring. EMC, along with Dell, wants to steal market share from Hewlett-Packard, which is in the process of integrating its business with Compaq. HP's acquisition of Compaq was finalized in May.

"Mergers of different cultures and different ways of doing business are very difficult," Tucci said. "We believe there are certain other companies out there going through merger pain right now."

Dell will take the direct revenue from sales of the CX 200 with EMC capturing licensing revenue.

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