Lenovo joins EMC on server, storage sectors

The world's second-largest PC maker Lenovo Group Ltd on Aug 1 signed an agreement with EMC Corp to jointly develop and sell server and storage technologies.

The two companies will develop X86 industry-standard servers, which will be brought to market by Lenovo, said Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo, without giving the exact release date.

The Beijing-based company will sell EMC's storage products through original equipment makers and resellers, Yang said at the signing ceremony.

Lenovo hopes the agreement will help the company expand its presence in the enterprise data storage market, while EMC believes that Lenovo's strong sales network will accelerate its expansion in China.

"Although China's server market is not the biggest globally, the increase was evident over the past two years," said Chen Xudong, Lenovo's China president. "Lenovo had 15 percent of the market share in China as of the last quarter."

Lenovo is a newcomer to the data storage sector, where global players such as IBM Corp and Oracle Corp have set well-established industrial chains years ago.

"IBM's major customers are large-scale conglomerates, but currently, we are focusing on the nation's small and medium-sized enterprises as our target customers," said Yang.