According to several sources and a post in , the joint venture will be a separate company funded by both Cisco and EMC. The name of the company could not be learned by press time, but sources say Cisco and EMC are actively recruiting sales personnel for it.

Cisco says it does not comment on rumors, and EMC also declined to comment.

The joint venture does not involve virtualization software vendor VMware, sources say, which is majority owned by EMC and in which Cisco is a significant investor. At the EMC Forum earlier this month, the three companies the so-called "VCE" alliance to jointly develop products for . 

VMware technology is a vital component of Cisco's new Unified Computing System (UCS), which integrates server virtualization and network and storage access into a single platform. What UCS lacks, however, is a storage component, says Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with the Yankee Group.

EMC was one of the showcase partners during the UCS launch.