BEIJING, Nov. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The Beijing City Government's Information Office and EMC Corporation today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate on the city government's "Digital Beijing" initiatives. Over the next few years, the city of Beijing will collaborate with EMC to build a state-of-the-art information infrastructure that will ultimately house the city's digital assets. Mr. Joseph M. Tucci, Chairman, President and CEO of EMC, and Mr. Zhao Fengtong, Vice Mayor of the City of Beijing, hosted today's signing ceremony.

Mr. Zhao Fengtong said, "The Beijing City Government is committed to the development of a comprehensive and advanced information infrastructure. We are pleased that EMC is investing its technology and expertise in support of the city of Beijing's digital initiatives. Through the adoption of innovative information technologies, we expect to improve the city's efficiency and quality of service for our citizens."

The alliance between EMC and Beijing will help change the way the city government interacts with its citizens. Specifically, the alliance will include:

eGovernment Architecture -- EMC will assist in developing and defining information infrastructure and information security standards for the government, and it will improve the eGovernment's information lifecycle management architecture as necessary.

Business Continuity Plan -- EMC will assist in developing a data recovery information infrastructure and setting up a business continuity/backup center and information security lab to ensure business continuity and information availability.

Citizen Center -- EMC will help develop the information infrastructure for the Citizen Experience Center, which will provide powerful online interfaces to enable faster responses and new levels of service.

Digital Data Archives -- EMC will explore information management and archiving solutions for Beijing's digital data.

In support of these digital initiatives, EMC will work closely with Beijing's IT specialists to build an information infrastructure based on EMC's portfolio of tiered storage systems and information management software to digitize, index, archive, and repurpose the city's information. In addition, EMC will leverage its existing EMC China Solution Center network and remote- networking capabilities to educate the city's IT employees about EMC's information management and storage capabilities. By the summer of 2008, EMC plans to train 200 senior city information technology professionals to provide support for Beijing's new information infrastructure.

Mr. Joseph M. Tucci said, "We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with the city of Beijing as they embark on their campaign to modernize the government's information technology. I have been a frequent visitor to Beijing over the past few years, and I always come away impressed with the city's passion for world-class innovation. We see tremendous opportunity for EMC in China and look forward to helping one of its most prominent cities move its digitization efforts forward."

Mr. Steve Leonard, EMC President of Asia Pacific and Japan, added, "EMC's growth opportunities are exceptionally strong in APJ. The most strategic way to expand our market leadership is by investing back into the region. We are thrilled to collaborate with the city of Beijing to design a technology solution that will improve its operations, support the highest levels of data protection and disaster recovery, and offer its citizens first-rate service."

About Digital Beijing

In 1999, Beijing Municipality launched the drive of "Digital Beijing," with the final target of shaping the sophisticated city-level digital capacity. This digital capacity is based on the completion of broadband & multimedia information networks and GIS, the integration of the city's information resources, and the buildup of information systems for eGovernment, eCommerce, online education, remote medical treatment, labor and social insurance, and more.

By the end of China's "Tenth Five-Year Plan," the framework of "Digital Beijing" has been achieved. As a leader of this kind of project within China, Beijing has completed building the infrastructure and is now moving to the next phase of online services. Information communications technology (ICT) is playing a more and more important role in the city's economic and social development.

The vision of Digital Beijing is set to be preliminarily realized in "The Eleventh Five-Year Plan," when 100% of key government services are supported by ICT, over 80% of business for approval can be transacted online, and each task within the Special Program for Construction of Digital Olympics is fulfilled. This will establish a comprehensive information service system, which is based on individuality and human-orientation, consistent with international norms, and demonstrates Chinese characteristics. All of this will make a sound groundwork for moving Beijing into the information society.

About EMC in China

EMC entered the Chinese market in 1996 and today operates major sales offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. EMC's current investments in China include:

-- A state-of-the-art software development center and EMC-Fudan Network Storage Training Center in Shanghai -- The EMC China Solution Center network, with five centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Taipei that support and demonstrate EMC's technologies for customers and partners -- A strong development partnership with Neusoft -- The "EMC Classroom" at Tsinghua University -- Thirty-five service centers across the country

Recently, EMC announced plans to invest USD$500 million in China over the next five years, underscoring EMC's deepened commitment to the rapidly growing China marketplace.

According to IDC, EMC is the #1 storage software vendor in People's Republic of China (PRC), capturing 39% of the country's storage software revenue in 2005 [a]. In addition to leading the storage software market, sales of EMC storage systems also led China's External Disk Storage market last year. 2005 revenue from EMC external disk storage systems represented 21.8% of the total External Disk Storage market, according to IDC [b].

About EMC

EMC Corporation is the world leader in products, services and solutions for information management and storage that help organizations extract the maximum value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at http://www.emc.com/.

EMC is a registered trademark of EMC Corporation. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

[a] Source: IDC Asia/Pacific Semiannual Storage Software Tracker, 2H 2005 [b] Source: IDC Asia/Pacific Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker, Q1 2006 CONTACTS: Joyce Zhou Lina Zhang 8610-8453-8333 8610-6801-3106 zhou_joyce@emc.comzhangln@beijingit.gov.cn Kristen Karapetian 1-508-293-7782 karapetian_kristen@emc.com

CONTACT: Joyce Zhou, +8610-8453-8333, zhou_joyce@emc.com, Kristen
Karapetian, +1-508-293-7782, karapetian_kristen@emc.com, or Lina Zhang,
+8610-6801-3106, zhangln@beijingit.gov.cn

Web site: http://www.emc.com/