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April 30, 2000
How would you feel if all your important family records like your children's birth certificate, your bank statements and friend's phone numbers were lost in a fire? We often forget how critical it is to maintain proper records. Our life is wrapped up in little slips of paper. We never know how really important they are until we lose something. Have you ever found yourself rummaging through stuff searching for those receipts for business expenses that your accountant needs to prepare your taxes? Only then do you kick yourself for not being more organized. Well just imagine how much more difficult it would be for a company to maintain their records. How "mission-critical" it would be to have proper back-up and storage capabilities. EMC Corp. intimately knows how important your records are. They've built their entire business around gathering and organizing millions and millions of bits of information.
EMC Corp. (EMC) manufactures, markets and supports storage related hardware, software and services for all types of systems, both offline and online. EMC specializes in software based products that enhance backup, restore disaster recovery, data migration and data movement. Its annual sales are in the seven billion range and its earnings have consistently grown over 30% a year for the past five years. The company recently reported in April that first quarter profits jumped 50%. EMC's track record sounds like the performance of a high quality Nasdaq growth stock. But don't try to look for EMC Corp among the Nasdaq leaders, it's listed on the DOW under the symbol "EMC".
Now who could imagine that storing and organizing data could be exciting and flashy, it would be like making your metal file cabinet the showcase piece in your living room. I don't think so! But Michael Ruettgers, the CEO of EMC, is out to change that image; and the Internet's growing need for storage is the catalyst for making his dream come true. To meet the storage needs of growing Internet companies, both large and small, EMC has developed a program called "E-Infostructure". E-Infostructure offers a powerful platform in which enterprise wide mission critical information can be gathered from ANY source, grow it to ANY scale and help accelerate the company to ANY speed. Through this program, EMC is well equipped to meeting the dynamic storage needs of Internet-based businesses.
To keep ahead of its competitors, EMC released the world's fastest, highest-capacity, BADDEST storage system – the Symmetrix family on April 15, 2000.
Although like every leading high tech company knows, they're only inches away from losing their advantage. But for now, EMC holds a comfortable lead. According to a survey by the marketing research group, International Data Corp, EMC has a 27% share of external storage market, Compaq has 13% and IBM has 11%.
It is important to note that, even though EMC Corp is considered one of the "Four Horsemen of the Internet", the recent debacle of Internet stocks barely put a dent in EMC's stock price. As of last Friday (April 28, 2000) it was trading at almost 139 – a mere 4% below its 52-week high of 145 (see EMC chart). This horseman seems to be galloping on solid ground – a very bullish sign.
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