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Strategies & Market Trends : Trend Setters and Range Riders -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Walk Softly who wrote (980)	6/13/2001 12:06:49 PM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 26752

UPDATE 1-EMC to fight back against rivals with pricing (adds details, comments) NEW YORK, June 13 (Reuters) - EMC Corp. <EMC.N> will keep cutting prices aggressively as needed to fight off rivals challenging its leadership in the market for data storage machines used to collect digital information such as e-mail, executive chairman Michael Ruettgers said on Wednesday. "Last year on our conference call, we said you could expect to see EMC get more aggressive on pricing against select competitors in select marketplaces," he said in a speech to investors at a Bear Stearns technology conference here. "The expectation is that we'll continue to be aggressive here in those certain sectors," he added. "We're driving pricing down aggressively during the period and we'll continue to do that." EMC has been facing increased competition from companies such as International Business Machines Corp. <IBM.N> , Compaq Computer Corp. <CPQ.N>, and Hitachi Data Systems Corp., a U.S. based unit of Hitachi Ltd. <6501.T>. EMC said on Wednesday it captured 34.6 percent of the nearly $17 billion market for external data-storage equipment in 2000, exceeding the combined market share of its four closest rivals. A study by independent research firm Gartner Dataquest showed that EMC picked up 4.4 percentage points in market share for products that store digital information such as e-mail and computer network traffic. EMC's external storage products generated $5.9 billion in revenue last year. The report also appears to lay to rest claims that EMC's market share is slipping. Hitachi Data Systems, which boasted it was gaining on EMC, saw its market share drop to 5.3 percent from 7.2 percent, according to the Gartner report. Compaq ranked second with 10.8 percent of the market, followed by IBM (8.1 percent), Hewlett-Packard Co. <HWP.N> (7.5 percent), and Sun Microsystems Inc. <SUNW.O> with 7.3 percent, according to the Gartner study. Fujitsu Ltd. <6702.T> showed the fastest growth in the industry, capturing 4.9 percent of the market compared with only 0.4 percent in 1999, according to Gartner. Fujitsu racked up $833 million in storage revenue in 2000, compared with just $49 million two years ago, according to Gartner. Gartner sells reports to the companies involved in the survey. Ruettgers said in an interview after the presentation that one area where the company would cut prices was for products around mainframe computers. "In the past we've talked primarily around the mainframe and some areas like that." When asked about Hitachi, he said: "They're the ones we're targeting with this stuff." Ruettgers said that in regard to customer activity and demand, things were still pretty dynamic, with different geographies all moving at different paces. "I would say not dramatic improvement," he said. ((-- Nicole Volpe, New York Newsdesk 646 223-6000)) REUTERS * end of story *