EMC's CEO Joe Tucci has confirmed a joint EMC/Dell attack on the low-end of the SAN (storage area network) market.

Diamond Joe, speaking this week at a Goldman Sachs conference, gave the best indication to date that EMC will roll out the CX100 and CX150 Clariion systems. In addition, Tucci confirmed that EMC plans to make this move in tandem with Dell and that both companies will team on a low-end NAS (network attached storage) Clariion product as well.

"Probably the worst-kept secret we've ever had is we're coming out with a lower-end Clariion," Tucci said, according to Internetnews.com. "And that's, of course, going to be a NAS version of that. And that will drop us into a different price point, and that's the first time that we've been there."

"Clearly with the NAS," Tucci continued, "the low-end CLARiiON product ... is going to be an extremely important product for Dell, and that could put NAS at a price point that is really in Dell's wheelhouse."

This follows comments from Dell that the company plans to come out with a low-end SAN bundle, including a storage server, HBA (host bus adapter) and switch.

EMC and Dell are strong partners in the storage market with Dell even manufacturing some hardware for EMC. The relationship with Dell has helped EMC shove its way into lower-ends of the market, attracting small to midsize customers. The new systems would push this attack even farther.

A new NAS box, in particular, would help EMC and Dell compete with Network Appliance. NetApp has enjoyed recent success. ®

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