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EMC Announces 3,892,179,868,480,350,000,000: Page 2 of 2

But the situation is considerably different for companies that depend on information to inform and improve the way they do business. For such organizations, managing ever expanding storage infrastructures is an energy sucking concern that is almost certain to cost more money, time and effort next year than it does today. Moreover, as highly mobile digital devices and computers become increasingly prevalent, the location to information will become chaotically distributed, making it more and more difficult to locate and secure.

If companies only had their own data to worry about, that would be cause for enough headaches. But in truth, as more and more businesses and business transactions move online (the Digital Universe study suggests that twice as much Internet commerce will take place in 2012 as in 2008, making it a $13 trillion industry) organizations will be legally responsible and liable for maintaining and securing growing volumes of consumer- generated information. That qualifies as intergalactic migraine territory.

Some may consider EMC's study to offer little more than an ongoing drumbeat of digital data doom. By contrast, while we believe that the company's effort certainly provides a cautionary view of the exploding growth of information, it also offers a clear window into the innovative storage solutions and automated management tools that should help individuals and organizations bring their corners of the Digital Universe under better control.