EMC: serving Latin America's Top 100.

Today's forward-thinking Latin American businesses are finding that networked storage is a strategic asset that can sharpen their competitive advantage and offset the impact of slow economic growth. Many of these companies are consolidating their IT infrastructures with EMC automated networked storage, software, and services to achieve more cost-effective, reliable management of their critical information. The result is lower operational costs, better customer service, and faster time-to-market of new applications and products.

Grupo Elektra, one of Mexico's largest retailers, relies on EMC's networked storage to provide better understanding of its operations and make customer-driven business decisions.

"EMC and Elektra have built a true alliance," said Manuel Gonzalez Palomo, vice president of systems for Grupo Elektra, which is listed on Latin Trade's ranking of Top 100 Public Companies of Latin America. "When it comes to customer service and understanding our business objectives, no other technology company is better than EMC."

Grupo Elektra is one of hundreds of Latin American companies that are using EMC automated networked storage to manage information generated by their most strategic initiatives, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and data warehousing applications. These companies have deployed EMC solutions to address growing requirements for 24x7, disaster-resilient operations, compliance with new government and industry-driven regulations, and cost-effective and reliable archiving solutions.

A global company with 2002 revenues of US$5.44 billion, EMC (NYSE: EMC) has thousands of customer installations in 14 Latin American countries with 16 local offices. Since entering the Latin American market in 1996, EMC has expanded rapidly and today leads the region with 43% market share of storage software, according to IDC's most recent software study--making EMC's share greater than the combined total of its next four largest competitors. EMC has strategic alliances with channel partners, software developers and integrators throughout the region including long-standing relationships with Dell, Oracle, Unisys, and Microsoft.

Jeffrey P. Casale, EMC's vice president and general manager, Latin America, attributed EMC's success to the growing awareness of the strategic business value of EMC automated networked storage.

"There is a real urgency among businesses for consolidation, control and continuity of their technology infrastructures through better management of information. EMC provides the foundation for storing and accessing business information so it can be utilized to the fullest extent throughout an enterprise. On top of that, we understand the business needs of our customers."

In Brazil, EMC is helping another Top 100 retailer, Grupo Pao de Acucar, provide better service to its customers. "In order to understand and meet customer expectations, it is imperative today to work with precise and detailed information," said Silvio Laban, CIO. "EMC solutions were proven to be the best choice for our requirements."

EMC's broad family of automated networked storage products addresses the full range of price/performance, availability, and management requirements across storage area networks (SANs), networked-attached storage (NAS), and content-addressed storage (CAS) environments. EMC's suite of open management and business continuity software helps enterprises simplify and protect their IT infrastructures. EMC's world-renowned Global Services provides 24x7 proactive customer service, storage infrastructure and software consulting, integration and implementation, and education.

Said Casale, "By delivering effective solutions to complex challenges, EMC provides Latin American customers with positive returns on their technology investments. Our customers recognize that EMC can address their most pressing business issues and deliver the most complete and competitive solutions. That's why more Latin Trade Top 100 companies are turning to EMC."

For more information, please see www.emc.com.