[April 13, 2001]

Broadwing, EMC Create Optical Media Centers

Broadwing Inc., announced that it has teamed with EMC Corporation combining Broadwing's intelligent all-optical, switched network with EMC's enterprise storage solutions to create Optical Media Centers. These next-generation hosting centers are part of Broadwing's nationwide fabric of 11 Web-hosting centers and managed services capabilities and will make bandwidth-intensive and content-rich applications like streaming media, broadcast television, and medical imaging a reality for business customers.

"Make no mistake about it, static Web pages, choppy multimedia, and limited audio and video content are no longer acceptable in today's full-motion world," said Rick Ellenberger, president and CEO of Broadwing. "The next Internet frontier will be populated by broadcast-quality video, CD-quality audio, 3-dimensional imaging, and other content-rich applications that will require the combination of deep storage and high-bandwidth networks to consolidate previously unimaginable amounts of data for easy storage and retrieval by users."

"The combination of Broadwing's 'killer platform' with EMC's premier enterprise storage solutions fulfills the long-held promise of delivering rich content on-demand to leading corporations, governments, and educational institutions," Ellenberger continued.

Broadwing's Optical Media Centers reside directly upon an intelligent, optical, switched network and provide an ideal environment for complex Web-hosting and storage area network applications. Broadwing OMCs are located in Cincinnati, Dallas, Santa Clara and New York City.

"Broadwing's first-of-its-kind all-optical network is the power plant of the digital economy and expands the capabilities of the EMC information infrastructure like never before," said Joe Tucci, CEO of EMC. "These Optical Media Centers will enable Broadwing to provide its business customers reliable access to information and keep up with the ever-growing demand for storage in tomorrow's content-driven world."

As part of the relationship, Broadwing becomes a member in EMC's xSPerience Provider Program, allowing Broadwing access to EMC expertise in the areas of business planning, infrastructure planning and development, product integration and differentiation, as well as sales and marketing support.

"Rich-content management is rapidly becoming a key strategic asset for Data Center Service Providers, "said Courtney Munroe, vice president of Telecom and IP Services at IDC, the Framingham, MA based provider of IT research and analysis. "The Broadwing-EMC arrangement has emerged as the one of the first, and leading solutions that caters to complex custom requirements. The combination of Broadwing's optical network, with EMC's cutting-edge storage technology represents a highly competitive service that will be tough to beat."

To extend the value of the Optical Media Centers, Broadwing and EMC'S Media Solutions group will work together to develop media asset management and content distribution solutions that will enable enterprise customers to manage and distribute rich media content.

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