VCE Vblock Demand Hits Billion Dollar Run Rate Three Years After Launch

SAN JOSE, CA and HOPKINTON, MA--(Marketwire - Feb 20, 2013) - Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) and EMC (NYSE: EMC) today announced that demand for their VCE™ joint venture's products and services has surpassed the $1 billion dollar annual run rate milestone* -- heralding VCE as one of the fastest-growing companies in IT industry history -- and that VCE has shipped its 1,000^th Vblock™ converged infrastructure system in slightly over three years since the company's inception. These milestones come as VCE prepares for the largest product launch in its history, which will be broadcast live tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. PST / 11:00 a.m. EST.

VCE Milestone Achievements:

• $1 Billion Annual Run Rate - In its most recent quarter, demand for VCE products and services surpassed a $1 billion annual run rate, solidifying VCE's place as one of the fastest-growing companies in IT industry history.
• 1,000th Vblock System Sold - After two years of product availability, VCE recently shipped the 1,000^th Vblock system.
• #1 Market Share - Gartner has named VCE the leader in the integrated infrastructure segment with a commanding 57.4 percent market share, underscoring the transformative impact VCE is having on their customers' ability to accelerate cloud computing adoption.

Formed in November 2009 by Cisco and EMC, with investments from VMware and Intel, VCE pioneered a new segment of the market with the innovative VCE Vblock pre-integrated converged infrastructure -- the industry's first completely integrated IT offering with end-to-end vendor accountability. 

VCE is the only company to engineer, manufacture, deliver and fully support its converged infrastructure offering with end-to-end multi-vendor visibility, enabling the leading time-to-market and one of the lowest total cost-of-ownership (TCO) for converged cloud infrastructure. The Vblock converged infrastructure is designed to standardize processes and product life cycle management to significantly improve application availability and help enable VCE's seamless support experience.

Executive Quotes:

John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco

"VCE is the outstanding result of the long-standing and successful partnership between EMC and Cisco. VCE continues to lead the converged infrastructure market and is one of the fastest growing companies in the history of IT. By allowing companies to focus on business innovation instead of technology integration, VCE represents the future of IT. Together with EMC, we intend to lead this industry for years to come."

Joe Tucci, Chairman and CEO, EMC

"Three years ago, Cisco and EMC announced that we would change the course of IT, and we did. VCE is ushering in a new era of IT transformation. Dynamic, agile IT drives dynamic, agile business and VCE has enabled companies of all sizes to realize game-changing benefits with converged infrastructure. This is just the beginning of what we will achieve in our joint venture with Cisco through our shared vision, continued investments, and the strength of and commitment to our partnership."

Praveen Akkiraju, CEO, VCE

"In any major industry transition, technology innovation powers business productivity advances. The transformational improvements VCE brings to our customers by simplifying IT deployments and operations has earned their trust and loyalty, and in turn, fueled VCE's rapid growth. Our deep experience accelerating customer data center modernization efforts positions us well to drive the next wave of innovation in converged infrastructure and converged data center operations."

Customer and Partner Quotes:

Stephen Rayda, Chief Technology Officer, Purdue Pharma, LP

"The cloud is built differently today -- more dynamic, with virtualized resources that enable us to conduct business in a more agile manner. Today, our infrastructure can be operated from anywhere, but that wasn't the case in the past and underscores the fundamental changes taking place in the data center evolution. VCE gets this shift and makes implementing core infrastructure more simple and pre-packaged."

Bryan Martin, Chairman and CEO, 8x8

"Vblock Systems represent the platinum standard for tier-one business applications and provide businesses with the confidence to entrust mission-critical applications to the cloud."  

About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com.

About EMC
EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset -- information -- in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

About VCE
VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers. VCE, through the Vblock System, delivers the industry's first completely integrated IT offering with end-to-end vendor accountability. VCE's pre-packaged solutions are available through an extensive partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead of integrating, validating and managing IT infrastructure. Learn more about Vblock Systems.

* Demand run rate is an annualized calculation of orders received in the applicable period by VCE, VMware, EMC and Cisco for the sale of VCE Vblock products and related services.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

EMC is a registered trademark of EMC Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks used are the property of their respective owners.

VCE and Vblock are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company LLC or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries.

Forward-Looking Statements

EMC

This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Federal Securities Laws. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iii) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture of product and services revenues; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures and new product introductions; (v) component and product quality and availability; (vi) fluctuations in VMware, Inc.'s operating results and risks associated with trading of VMware stock; (vii) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and market change; (viii) risks associated with managing the growth of our business, including risks associated with acquisitions and investments and the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving anticipated synergies; (ix) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (x) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (xi) fluctuating currency exchange rates; (xii) threats and other disruptions to our secure data centers or networks; (xiii) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (xiv) war or acts of terrorism; and (xv) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. EMC disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

Cisco

This release may be deemed to contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, among others, statements regarding the VCE partnership, VCE's impact for its customers, Cisco and EMC continuing to lead the industry for years to come, and VCE driving the next wave of innovation in converged infrastructure and converged data center operations. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results due to a variety of factors, including, among other things, the ability of the companies to partner successfully, the ability to achieve expected benefits of the partnership, business and economic conditions and growth trends in the networking industry, customer markets and various geographic regions, increased competition, global economic conditions and uncertainties in the geopolitical environment and other risk factors set forth in Cisco's most recent reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q filed on September 12, 2012 and February 19, 2013, respectively. Any forward-looking statements in this release are based on limited information currently available to Cisco, which is subject to change, and Cisco will not necessarily update the information.

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