Posted 11/02/09 at 08:07:11 AM by Paul Lilly

Citing anonymous sources "familiar with their plans," Reuters reports that Cisco and storage area networking company EMC will work together to bring a new line of products to market dubbed vBlock. The new line will consist of cloud computing gear, including networking equipment, computers, and storage devices.

Cisco and EMC both declined to comment, but according to the talkative sources, the two companies will assemble computer systems for customers, which will also include all the necessary software.

"It's a 'virtual block' of the data center. You can buy it from them as a service, then eventually transition it to your own data center," said one of the people familiar with the plan.

Should the rumor turn out to be true -- and there's reason to believe it is, given that this isn't the first time the two have been linked in plans to jointly develop could-based solutions -- it will turn the heat up on rivals IBM and Hewlett-Packard, both of which offer a wider selection of data center equipment.

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