Lenovo To Bundle EMC Storage With Thinkpad Notebooks

Lenovo plans to provide unlimited online data backup services to small businesses thanks to an OEM arrangement with EMC's Mozy service.

EMC on Wednesday said that Lenovo will bundle EMC Mozy with all ThinkPad SL-series notebooks. The service will be available as a free 90-day trial with up to 5 Gbytes of storage.

Mozy was acquired by EMC last October, and is now the base on which EMC is building a software as a service (SaaS) offering.

EMC also said it opened Mozy's first international data center in Dublin, Ireland, in order to serve its data backup service customers worldwide. The move is part of a broader plan by the storage vendor to move into the cloud computing business.

While the Mozy technology has been available through other companies on an OEM basis, this is the first time it is available bundled with hardware, said Vance Checketts, COO of EMC's Mozy business unit.

It is not expected to be the last, Checketts said. "We envision other bundling opportunities with other manufacturers, ISVs, Telcos, and ISPs," he said. "These are natural partnerships. Those companies have established customer relationships, and a billing infrastructure in place."

The deal with Lenovo, discussions for which only started after EMC's acquisition of Mozy, is expected to help EMC's expansion into the OEM storage service business as much as Mozy's multi-million-dollar deal last year with General Electric helped it expand into the business market, Checketts said.

"The GE deal put us on the map for the business space," he said. "Lenovo puts us on the map for large bundling relationships."

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