Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst of the Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, Mass., agreed that the deal is a huge win for EMC because it gives it expanded reach into the small-to-medium business market without really disrupting its long-standing OEM agreement with Dell Inc.

Dell manufactures and resells EMC's midrange and low-end Clariion arrays.

"Intel has 160,000 -- for the most part-- small VARs with incredible reach around the planet, so it's a brilliant idea for EMC," Duplessie said. "Dell doesn't sell into Asia-Pacific. And, Dell doesn't even sell a lot of the AX [models]. So it extends EMC's potential reach and it's really not competitive. This is a giant, whole new channel."

EMC and Intel's expanded technology agreement means Intel will specifically enhance its processors to meet the increasing requirements of networked storage systems and help EMC to enhance its storage architectures and identify future market requirements, the companies said in a statement.

"By working with EMC to deliver standards-based storage platforms, we are bringing leading enterprise storage value and technology to Intel customers worldwide," said Hans Geyer, vice president and general manager of Intel's Storage Group.