Here is my highlighted version of the release ... with some twaddle following the release ...
IBM and EMC Announce Strategic Technology and Business Alliance
ARMONK, N.Y., and HOPKINTON, Mass. — March 24, 1999 — IBM and EMC Corporation today announced a five-year strategic technology and business alliance valued at $3 billion. The alliance, which significantly expands an existing business relationship between the two industry leaders, will result in major benefits for many of IBM's and EMC's mutual customers.
Under terms of the accord, EMC will continue to purchase advanced IBM disk drives for incorporation into EMC's Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems. In the future, the agreement is likely to include other IBM technologies, such as microprocessors and advanced custom chips.
The alliance also provides for a broad patent cross-license between the two companies for storage and other technologies. In addition, the companies agreed to work together to further develop mutually beneficial business opportunities.
Paul Noble, EMC's Executive Vice President, Products and Offerings, said, "We consider EMC's disk drive testing and qualification process to be the most stringent in the world. Through its leadership component technology and commitment to building its OEM business, IBM has been one of the few suppliers able to meet our requirements. We began integrating IBM's advanced disk drives into our Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems more than a year ago, and the results have been excellent. We believe customers will welcome this long-term commitment to work together for their benefit, ensuring not only the continued integration of IBM components into EMC's software-driven intelligent storage systems, but also the promise of even greater levels of interoperability between EMC and IBM systems - a combination that already represents the world's most common environment for mission-critical information management and protection.”
"Today one of IBM's fiercest rivals in the storage systems business now becomes one of our best customers for advanced technology," said Jim Vanderslice, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Technology Group. "We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with EMC, one of the most sophisticated users of advanced disk drive technology. We also view this agreement as further evidence of the success of our strategy to aggressively pursue new growth opportunities for IBM's leadership OEM technology products.”
THIS LAST PART DOES NOT MAKE INTUITIVE SENSE. THIS WOULD BE LIKE FORD AND GM SHARING ENGINES AND POWERTRAINS. IT WOULD BE LIKE MICROSOFT AND ORACLE SHARING CODE. IT WOULD BE LIKE THE YANKEES AND THE RED SOX SHARING BULLPENS.
I JUST DO NOT GET IT ... IF IT DOESN'T MAKE INTUITIVE SENSE, SHOULDN'T THAT BE CAUSE FOR ALARM (OR AT LEAST, PAUSE)?
--Duker |
