SSPA Recognizes EMC Corporation with a 2003 STAR Award(email this article)

(San Diego CA. October 29, 2003) – The Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) (Company Profile, Past Stories, Case Studies), the leading industry Association for IT support professionals, announced today that EMC Corporation, the world leader in information storage systems, software and services, was recognized for their customer service excellence with a SSPA STAR Award at the recently held SSPA Conference@Savannah.  Chosen as the best in what they do, EMC was honored for delivering exemplary technical support to their customers and presented with a 2003 STAR Award in the Mission Critical category.

Applicants in this category provide technical support in mission critical environments where “system down time” creates major customer problems.  Technical support for these support centers becomes a critical part of keeping customers “up and running” at all times.  Applicants should clearly show how important their technical support is to the overall operation of mission critical systems or services.

“The SSPA STAR Award winners provide a showcase of the top talent within our industry; and serves as the highest form of recognition they can receive in the service and support industry.” said Bill Rose, SSPA Founder/CEO.  “As this year’s winner in the Mission Critical category, EMC has proven that they are an exceptional company that delivers world-class services.”

Leo Colborne, EMC’s Vice President of Global Customer Service, said, “The relationship between EMC and its customers is as much about service and support as it is about the innovative technology we provide.  Keeping operations up and running at all times is a critical requirement for our customers.  We will continue to work hard to make our customers successful and are honored to be recognized for our third consecutive SSPA award.”

All SSPA Member companies are eligible to nominate themselves in any number of the categories -- Sustained Performance; High Call Volume; Most Improved; Complex Support Applications; Outsource Support Provider; Innovative Support; Mission Critical Support: Small/Emerging Company and Support Technology Vendor. SSPA provides each Applicant with an electronic application as a benchmark/guideline.  The STAR Award Applicants take this task very seriously and spend a considerable amount of time on this arduous, but rewarding process. Many non-winners have said that, even though they did not win an Award, the whole process was well worth the time and effort. They indicate they learned a lot from the process and were able to discover in what areas they can use improvement. For more information on the SSPA STAR Awards please visit www.thesspa.com or send an email to info@thesspa.com.

About EMC Corporation
EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world leader in information storage systems, software, networks and services, providing automated networked storage solutions to help organizations extract the maximum value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle. Information about EMC's products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.

About SSPA
Founded in 1989, the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) was formed to focus on the specific needs of service executives who are responsible for support centers and overall customer relations. Today, the SSPA represents over 22,300 service professionals at 2,500 support centers worldwide. These executives look to SSPA to provide insight into the future of support services, a road map of best practices within our industry and access to the best service and support vendors. SSPA has become the center of support providing a reliable and comprehensive resource for news, research, benchmarking, standards and collaboration.

SSPA was created for professionals, managers and executives that make their living in the IT support services community. It is not a generic, one-size-fits all website where nobody ever feels like they belong. SSPA is dynamic, interactive, living resource specifically designed for the unique needs of support professionals. This exciting virtual community creates a forum for constant interaction with peers, industry experts, technology vendors and much more. For more information regarding the SSPA and other related divisions, log on to www.thesspa.com or send an email to info@thesspa.com.