Dell Number One in Open Systems Storage Worldwide

Gains Storage Market Share across the Board, Takes Lead in iSCSI SANs

In the first quarter of calendar year 2008, Dell for the first time captured a leading 20.4 percent of the open systems (Windows/Linux) external worldwide disk array storage market with $422 million in revenue. Its closest competitor claimed 18.5 percent share and $384 million in revenue. Dell’s external controller-based storage revenue increased 21 percent year-over-year, and Dell gained share in iSCSI-based SANs to take the number one position with more than twice the revenue of the next leading vendor.1 This growth demonstrates strong momentum in all segments of Dell’s worldwide storage business.

“We believe taking the lead in the Windows/Linux external storage market is significant. We have invested heavily in our portfolio across the board,” said Darren Thomas, vice president and general manager of Dell Enterprise Storage. “This is the high-growth segment, and we plan to continue demonstrating leadership throughout our entire family of storage systems, including PowerVault, Dell/EMC and EqualLogic.”

Digital data is expanding at a rate faster than computer systems and those who manage them can reliably store, manage and protect it. Driven by digital content creation in all media – including audio, video and graphical – and the proliferation of email and data sharing of all kinds, the amount of data that needs to be stored by business and consumers alike is growing exponentially.2

This explains, in part, why Dell shipped over 116 petabytes in external disk storage for Windows/Linux servers in Q1, representing 95 percent of the total of 122 petabytes of external disk storage Dell ships each quarter.1 “That is an astounding amount of storage capacity,” said Thomas. As a comparison, it is estimated by some that the total printed matter contained by all U.S. academic research libraries equals only two petabytes.3 All told, Dell ships more than an estimated 288 petabytes of total disk storage each week within all of its products – including servers, desktops, laptops and enterprise storage systems – in order to accommodate the demand for storage in the digital universe.

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Statements in this press release that relate to future results and events (including statements about anticipated growth and demand for our products) are forward-looking statements based on Dell’s current expectations. Actual results and events in future periods could differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements because of a number of risks and uncertainties including: general economic, business and industry conditions; our ability to maintain a cost advantage over our competitors; local economic and labor conditions, political instability, unexpected regulatory changes, trade protection measures, tax laws, copyright levies and fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; our ability to accurately predict product, customer and geographic sales mix and seasonal sales trends; information technology and manufacturing infrastructure failures; our ability to effectively manage periodic product transitions; any additional issues or matters that may arise from the ongoing SEC investigation; our ability to maintain a strong internal control environment; our reliance on third-party suppliers for quality product components, including reliance on several single-source or limited-source suppliers; our ability to access the capital markets; unfavorable results of legal proceeding could harm our business and result in substantial costs; our acquisition of other companies; our ability to properly manage the distribution of our products and services; effective hedging of our exposure to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates; obtaining licenses to intellectual property developed by others on commercially reasonable and competitive terms; our ability to attract, retain and motivate key personnel; loss of government contracts; expiration of tax holidays or favorable tax rate structures; changing environmental laws; and the effect of armed hostilities, terrorism, natural disasters and public health issues. For a discussion of those and other factors affecting Dell’s business and prospects, see Dell’s periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

1Source: Gartner, Inc. “Quarterly Statistics: Disk Array Storage, All Regions, All Countries” by Robin Burke et al., June 6, 2008

2Source: IDC White Paper sponsored by EMC, “The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe,” March 2008

3Source: James S. Huggins’ Refrigerator Door http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/how_big.htm

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