Japanese IT systems manufacturer NEC and U.S. storage system vendor EMC officially announced that they have signed a new technology license and software distribution agreement. The new alliance expansion involves new technology development, distribution, joint marketing, customer service and support, and increased collaboration and integration of the two companies' information management and infrastructure solutions.

The agreement was unveiled on Wednesday by Joe Tucci, EMC's Chairman, President and CEO, and Kaoru Yano, NEC's President, at a joint news conference in Tokyo.

EMC and NEC have agreed to collaborate on the development, manufacturing, distribution and support of certain future storage technologies and entry-level products.

The two companies have decided to leverage their respective strengths and resources to bring the next generation of information management solutions and entry-level storage products to market.

EMC and NEC will license various technologies from their respective resource management products (EMC Smarts and NEC WebSAM) and will incorporate them into future releases from each company. The companies will further ensure tight integration of the WebSAM framework and the EMC Smarts model-based architecture.

Both companies intend to collaborate on the development of content management solutions for emerging customer requirements. EMC and NEC intend to jointly develop and resell these solutions globally, with a focus on Japan.

Within Japan, EMC and NEC intend further align each company's sales and marketing, solution development and consulting for NEC's Platform Optimization Solutions, EMC Proven Solutions and EMC's ILM Consulting Services.