Adds to portfolio of EMC Velocity Services Implement capabilities and provides business partners access to flexible data centre solution implementations

STUTTGART, GERMANY - Today, Magirus International announced that it is the first distributor in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to offer assembly services for EMC VSPEX. The assembly services capability will help the company better support many of its reseller partners by delivering pre-built, multi-vendor solutions such as VSPEX that include EMC technology. Magirus International was acquired recently by Avnet Technology Solutions, a leader in global IT solutions distribution and an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT). Through Magirus International's data centre expertise, Avnet will now be able to support business partners by assembling VSPEX as well as integrating this technology with other data centre components - tailoring solutions for business partners and their customers.

EMC VSPEX, unlike most current integrated stacks, comprises a flexible, open architecture of validated computing, network, storage and data management technologies. Now, with the Velocity Services capability, Magirus International will be able to assemble VSPEX in racks. Also, it can pre-configure the VSPEX components with data centre technologies from vendors such as VMware, Cisco, EMC and Brocade, thereby accelerating the creation of solutions tailored to customers' business needs.

Andrew Binding, vice-president, Supplier Acceleration at Avnet Technology Solutions, commented, "Migration to the data centre and cloud computing is complex. However, this new assembly services capability allows us to simplify this journey by bringing all the aspects of the data centre together for our business partners across EMEA. All in all, it will give our business partners and their customers' greater choice in selecting the specification of their data centre solution and how it will be implemented, saving both time and money."

Effective immediately from the European Data Centre Configuration Centre (formerly known as M-Site) in Strasbourg, France, the EMC assembly services capability will allow Avnet to help its business partners working with small and mid-market organisations. In turn, this will enable Avnet's business partners to open up new revenue opportunities with best-of-breed, integrated data centre technologies centred on EMC VSPEX.

Jerome Jullien, senior director, EMEA Partner Global Services Lead, EMC Corporation, commented, "EMC's new assembly services gives Magirus the opportunity to support their resellers by delivering solutions that are tailor made to specific customer requirements. The validated reference architecture of VSPEX provides customers choice and when combined with Magirus' assembly services ability allows resellers to focus on integration in the customer's environment. EMC is committed to providing our distributors and resellers choice, flexibility and opportunity with our next generation of products and services."

Also, Magirus International provides business resellers with the support to develop their own data centre services and therefore deepen the relationship with their customers and broaden the sale with recurring revenue opportunities.

Colin Sheard, managing director at UK-based business partner, Synapse said, "This new EMC VSPEX VSA & VSI certification will make a big difference to us as it will free up on average around 30% of the pre-sales process through not having to pre-configure our data centre solutions. So it means we can spend more time on value-added data centre and integration services to help our customers."

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Notes to Editors

*EMC VSPEX is a simple, efficient, and flexible reference architecture comprised of EMC's award-winning storage systems and next-generation backup products, along with best-of-breed virtualisation, server, and network technology from EMC alliance collaborators Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Intel, Microsoft, and VMware.

About EMC
EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyse their most valuable asset - information - in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com

EMC and VSPEX are either registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

About Avnet Technology Solutions
As a global IT solutions distributor, Avnet Technology Solutions collaborates with its customers and suppliers to create and deliver services, software and hardware solutions that address the business needs of their end-user customers locally and around the world. The group serves customers and suppliers in the Americas, Asia Pacific, and Europe, Middle East and Africa. It generated US $10.8 billion in annual revenue for fiscal year 2012. Avnet Technology Solutions is an operating group of Avnet, Inc. For more information, visit www.ts.avnet.com

About Avnet
Avnet, Inc. (NYSE:AVT), a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest distributors of electronic components, computer products and embedded technology serving customers globally. Avnet accelerates its partners' success by connecting the world's leading technology suppliers with a broad base of customers by providing cost-effective, value-added services and solutions. For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012, Avnet generated revenue of $25.7 billion. For more information, visit www.avnet.com.

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