EMC® and Microsoft Corp. today announced a three-year extension of their strategic alliance through 2011. The two companies are committing to broader and deeper product interoperability and service delivery to address key customer requirements including virtualization, security and content management through the powerful combination of Microsoft’s data center solutions and productivity applications with EMC’s information infrastructure solutions and consultancy. As a result, joint customers will benefit from more productive and less costly dynamic IT infrastructures that can effectively respond to today’s rapidly changing business requirements and economic constraints.

At an invitation-only event for chief information officers and other IT executives, Joe Tucci and Steve Ballmer discussed how the two companies will continue to deliver value to mutual customers through collaboration including a deeper focus on storage and protection of information in virtualized environments, increased productivity through centralized management of content, and leading-edge security solutions to prevent data breaches.

“Microsoft and EMC are committed to working together to create enterprise infrastructure technologies that will help businesses build extremely efficient and agile IT systems,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp. “Through the joint investments we are making, we will continue to deliver solutions that enable enterprise customers to meet their business goals today and lay the groundwork for future success.”

“The EMC and Microsoft alliance has delivered tremendous and long-lasting value to customers for more than a decade,” said Joe Tucci, chairman, president and chief executive officer, EMC Corp. “Today marks the next phase in this evolution. The companies remain committed to delivering solutions that blend Microsoft’s technology with EMC’s information infrastructure portfolio, spanning across virtualization, storage, IT resource and content management, security products and consulting services.”