MORRISVILLE – As Hurricane Florence nears North Carolina’s coasts and threatens the Research Triangle region, two high-tech firms with a major presence in the Park are teaming up for new data storage products and a joint venture in China.

Lenovo, which operates one of its two global headquarters in Morrisville and bases its server business in RTP, announced a partnership with NetApp, a leading provider storage technology, for the new products.

One of NetApp’s largest campuses is located in RTP.

The hardware will be manufactured and branded by Lenovo.

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The joint venture will be based in Lenovo’s home country of China. Its other headquarters is located in Beijing, and its stock is traded in Hong Kong.

“Lenovo is committed to driving the new IT – Intelligent Transformation – through an expanding customer-centric set of data center offerings,” said Yang Yuanqing, Chairman and CEO of Lenovo, at Lenovo’s Transform marketing and product event in New York.

“Lenovo is committed to both organic and inorganic growth to meet the needs of our customers, and maintaining the strongest global partnerships in the data center industry.”

The companies said they are “co-developing the largest range of new Lenovo-branded storage products that combine NetApp’s industry-leading all-flash data management solutions with Lenovo’s award-winning ThinkSystem infrastructure. These new products will utilize core software technology from NetApp and will be manufactured by Lenovo, leveraging Lenovo’s world-class supply chain.”

Lenovo is one of the world’s top PC manufacturers and its global server business has rebounded in recent months to report huge gains in sales.

The first two products, Lenovo ThinkSystem DE and DM Series, already are available, Lenovo said.

“In today’s global economy, customers demand new approaches to IT infrastructures that support their digital transformation; through this partnership, Lenovo and NetApp will offer a comprehensive portfolio of products, solutions and service that is unrivaled in the market today,” said George Kurian, NetApp’s CEO. “Combining our complementary strengths in customer-centric innovation, Lenovo and NetApp will establish a new standard to accelerate our customers’ success.”

More information about the partnership is available online.