EMC sells contracts in network consolidation

Enterprise storage manufacturer EMC has sold its contract maintenance business outside of North America to ICL Sorbus, in a move to focus on its core market and pursue the fast-growing consolidated storage sector.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the sell-off includes the support services of some of EMC's discontinued product lines, as the vendor moves away from the mid-range storage sector in order to concentrate on enterprise and network storage.

The changeover of customers to ICL Sorbus will take place in phases beginning next month. The products affected are Harmonics, SL subsystems and Cape storage lines.

'The move is in order to target the fastest growing sector, consolidated storage, where systems are managed in one place, under one roof,' said Astley Gayle, EMC product marketing manager for the UK and Ireland.

'Our key area of focus is software - embedded software that transforms storage devices for mainframes and NT, PCs and Unix systems into network storage devices.'

EMC has reported a third quarter net profit of $132.6 million in the period to 30 September 1997, up 47 per cent from $90.4 million last time, on turnover of $732.6 million which rose 33 per cent from $550.8 million last year.

In the nine-month period, net profit was $372.3 million, up 42.1 per cent from $262 million last year. The company's turnover was $2 billion, up 27.6 per cent from $1.6 billion last time.