HOPKINTON, MA /PRNewswire/ -- EMC Corp., the "world's leading provider of information infrastructure solutions," announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire California-based Greenplum Inc. Greenplum is a privately held, fast-growing provider of disruptive data warehousing technology, a key enabler of "big data" clouds and self-service analytics. Upon completion of the acquisition, Greenplum will form the foundation of a new data computing product division within EMC's Information Infrastructure business.

Today, new forms of data—massive amounts of it—are emerging more quickly than ever before, thanks to always-on networks, the Web, a flood of consumer content, surveillance systems, sensors, and the like. In a recent report, IDC predicted that over the next 10 years the amount of digital data created annually will grow 44 fold. Companies are increasingly turning to new architectures and new tools to help make sense of this "big data" phenomenon.

Regarded by industry experts as a visionary leader, Greenplum uses a "shared-nothing" massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture that has been designed from the ground up for analytical processing, using virtualized x86 infrastructure. Greenplum is capable of delivering 10–100 times the performance of traditional database software at a dramatically lower cost. Data-driven businesses around the world—including NASDAQ OMX, NYSE Euronext, Skype, Equifax, T-Mobile, and Fox Interactive Media—have adopted Greenplum for sophisticated, high-performance data analytics.

Pat Gelsinger, President and Chief Operating Officer, EMC Information Infrastructure Products, said, "The data warehousing world is about to change. Greenplum's massively parallel, scale-out architecture, along with its self-service consumption model, has enabled it to separate itself from the incumbent players and emerge as the leader in this industry shift toward 'big data' analytics. Greenplum's market-leading technology, combined with EMC's virtualized Private Cloud infrastructure provides customers, today, with a best-of-breed solution for tomorrow's 'big-data' challenges."

Bill Cook, Greenplum CEO, said, "EMC and Greenplum bring extraordinary potential to customers at the intersection of 'big data' and sophisticated analytics. As technology and business partners, EMC and Greenplum witness daily the enthusiasm with which customers embrace how together we impact their businesses in very tangible, positive, and meaningful ways. The technology speaks for itself. What energizes us most now is EMC's ability to open new doors of opportunity and accelerate delivery of our joint vision for the future."

Scott McNealy, Executive Advisor to Greenplum, said, "EMC's strength in the enterprise, and Greenplum's push to fully transform data warehousing and business analytics, makes for a perfect fit. Together they are brilliantly bringing together the power of cloud computing, virtualization, and social collaboration to help customers as they venture into the next phase of computing and business analytics."

Jeff Wiggin, Vice President of Enterprise Systems at T-Mobile USA, said, "Greenplum and EMC have the potential to be a powerful and transformational combination. It could present many opportunities for T-Mobile USA to deliver new innovative technology solutions that have an impact on our ability to be more efficient, effective, and provide better service to our customers."

The acquisition of Greenplum will be an all-cash transaction and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2010, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. The acquisition is not expected to have a material impact to EMC GAAP and non-GAAP EPS for the full 2010 fiscal year. Upon close, Bill Cook will lead the new data computing product division and report to Pat Gelsinger. EMC will continue to offer Greenplum's full product portfolio to customers and plans to deliver new EMC proven reference architectures as well as an integrated hardware and software offering, designed to improve performance and drive down implementation costs.

About EMC
EMC Corp. is the "world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information."

EMC is a registered trademark of EMC Corp. in the U.S. and other countries. Greenplum is a registered trademark of Greenplum Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.