HP renewal seals EMC partnership

Storage Rumours of difficulties are put to rest with three-year deal.

Hewlett Packard has signed a three-year extension to an agreementeal. with EMC to act as the storage company's strategic reseller.

The deal puts an end to rumours that the companies were experiencing problems working together.

Mike Maunder, director of European marketing operations at EMC, said: 'At the end of last year there were rumours of a dodgy relationship between EMC and HP. I think this agreement shows that it's not true. We wouldn't want to partner with anyone else on this scale right now.'

But Maunder conceded that there had been difficulties between the two sales forces at times, due to conflicting approaches.

'We had some problems with our sales force at the beginning,' said Maunder.

'They didn't understand the length of time it takes to sell a complete system to customers. They were a bit impatient.'

The partnership began in 1995, with HP selling EMC's Symmetrix range as part of its storage system for medium to large enterprises. To date, the deal has been worth more than $1 billion to EMC. About 45 per cent of EMC's income in Europe is through indirect channels, 55 per cent of that coming from the partnership with HP.

EMC, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and based in Massachusetts, reported its most successful quarter ever with net income at $256 million for the period ended 31 December 1998, up 54 per cent on last year.

Nick Dagg, enterprise storage marketing manager at HP, added: 'EMC was the first partner to sign up to our 99.95 per cent availability programme and it will be an integral part of our five nines (99.999 per cent availability) service.'