Can EMC Romance SMBs? - Page 2

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Promising Future

Although all the companies involved declined to comment, it's clear they all see market opportunities with data storage for smaller businesses.

A new study from IDC and EMC reports that data requirements are growing at an annual rate of 60 percent.

Combine that with the growth of the SMB enterprise base and you've got the equivalent of a data explosion on the horizon. As one pundit put it, SMBs are a real engine in U.S. business growth. They employ about half of all private-sector employees and have generated an estimated 60 to 80 percent of new jobs annually over the last decade.

No wonder that big systems providers, including Sun and IBM are trying to woo SMBs with storage products these days.

EMC knows that it has plenty of competition for this slice of the market.

"This is part of the current trend of bigger companies, the multinationals, wanting to work with the consumer market," noted Brian Babineau, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. "The thing is, EMC isn't Dell and just can't show up," he told InternetNews.com. "They have to go in under the guide of a well-known brand like Iomega."

Iomega provided no time frame on when, if at all, a deal with EMC might be done. EMC, meanwhile, would only say its due diligence on the deal sould be done in a few weeks.

"EMC doesn't spend money like drunken sailors on a Saturday night. The only bad that could happen is if EMC, for some reason, tries to change the DNA and culture of Iomega, or doesn't nurture and care and feed Iomega," said Schultz. "But I don't see that happening as it's got one of the best acquisition track records around."