Features - Financial Plays Of The Week:

TECH DATA, EMC ESTABLISH AGREEMENT FOR GOV'T IT CONTRACTS

Tech Data Corp and EMC Corp announced that they have expanded their U.S. distribution relationship established earlier this year. Tech Data will distribute EMC CLARiiON networked storage solutions, EMC Centera content addressed storage systems and EMC software to resellers targeting federal IT contracts. Tech Data is the only broadline distributor to offer these storage solutions to EMC-certified federal resellers.

"This is a natural extension of our distribution partnership with Tech Data," said Steve Alfieris, vice president of EMC's Federal Sales. "Tech Data's extensive reseller network and dedicated government sales team will enable EMC to further strengthen its channel presence and better serve federal IT solution providers and systems integrators throughout the U.S."

Tech Data offers government resellers a wide range of services including seasonal credit increases, bid-preparation, pre- and post-sale support and systems integration. By leveraging these and other Tech Data services such as the distributor's logistics expertise and e-business infrastructure, resellers are well positioned to pursue government IT contracts.

According to INPUT, a government market analyst firm, the federal government awarded more than $115 billion in IT-related contracts last year. "The government buying season is a tremendous opportunity for resellers to earn high-value integration and service contracts," said Joel Davis, Tech Data's vice president of east & government sales. "The addition of EMC to Tech Data's government linecard offers federal resellers greater flexibility when designing versatile storage solutions suitable for a wide range of applications."

Under the agreement, Tech Data will distribute mid-tier storage solutions manufactured by EMC including the EMC CLARiiON CX500 and EMC CLARiiON CX700 networked storage systems; the EMC Centera content addressed storage solution; and related EMC software applications to EMC-certified federal resellers. For the business market, Tech Data already distributes the EMC NetWin 110, EMC CLARiiON CX300 and EMC CLARiiON AX100 networked storage systems throughout the United States and much of Latin America. Tech Data also will work closely with resellers to help them become EMC-certified federal resellers.

Tech Data distributes EMC storage solutions through its Enterprise Specialized Business Unit (SBU), which supports resellers of advanced storage and security technologies that typically require longer sales cycles and highly specialized requirements. The Enterprise SBU offers resellers access to field-based engineers, vendor product representatives and certified systems engineers.

About EMC

EMC Corp is a provider of products, services and solutions for information storage and management that help organizations extract the maximum value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.