[Johannesburg, 2 September 2009]

In line with an international strategy to appoint business partners that can drive market expansion, EMC has appointed local company StorTech as a Tier 1 Solution Center Partner in terms of its Velocity programme.

Vic Booysen, partner manager at EMC Computer Systems South Africa, says following a rigorous selection process, an agreement was concluded that facilitates a direct relationship between EMC and StorTech, a major player in the data storage arena in which Vodacom recently acquired a majority shareholding. It also enables StorTech to place orders directly on EMC.

“As a Tier 1 Solution Center Partner, StorTech essentially acts as an extension of EMC and can market any EMC solution into the market, a capability that enables them to build, enhance and expand existing storage solutions in terms of hardware and software,” says Booysen. “Over the coming months, StorTech will go through official accreditation and certification, a process that will enable them to enhance their skill set and provide a wider range of consultative and support services to their customer base, one which has to date not been exposed to EMC’s offering.”

Tim Knowles, CEO of StorTech, says the company has been focusing in the niche storage, backup and disaster recovery side of the market since its incorporation in 1999, and was actively looking to provide end-to-end data storage solutions to their clients.

“Our appointment as an EMC Tier 1 Solution Center Partner fills this need perfectly, giving us access to high quality technical solutions from the world leader in this increasingly specialised market segment,” says Knowles. “What differentiates EMC is their holistic approach to the entire storage hierarchy, with a complete environment that enables us to offer an improved information storage solution to our clients - one that is easy to manage, easy to integrate and results in a reduced cost of ownership.”

According to Knowles, given the wide diversity of hardware and software installed at customers over the years, it is important that the company is able to offer a solution that integrates their customers’ different software and tools, protecting their existing investments in infrastructure.

“As storage needs grow – and grow quickly, so too does the need to manage this rapid demand properly and optimise the intelligent storage and retrieval of data,” he says. “EMC, as the market leader in this environment across the globe, offers the broadest spectrum of end-to-end solutions with common tools and management software that enables us to assist COOs and IT managers to manage and control their information storage environment in an increasingly tough economic climate.”