Data Center Advisors

These are exciting times we live in, indeed! Steve Jobs has officially resigned his post. HP has opened their kimono to enterprise focused strategy leaving behind WebOS and the PC business. And today we celebrate combining the innovative talent of BlueArc with the Hitachi family.

Our relationship with BlueArc began when we were tasked to find the perfect technology partner offering file systems or file storage appliances. The pursuit spawned some healthy competition internally, as we each wanted to find the perfect match. I named this endeavor Project Carrot. The field of companies and products we looked into we called the “Carrot Patch” and each company had their own code name based upon a type of carrot. Ultimately, Jumbo – BlueArc – surpassed all others in the Carrot Patch. (I’ll leave Ken to recount that series of events in more detail, but suffice to say the quest that we had anticipated turned out to be a no brainer when BlueArc’s technologies and team came on the scene.)

In 2008, Shmuel – BlueArc’s CTO, my personal friend and mentor –and I celebrated the beginning of super deep inter-product integration. This realized the joint vision the two companies had been working on for the better part of 18 months, and as my previous blog post recounts in some detail. Our shared vision and spirit of collaboration has led to many customer wins for each company. To date each company has brought complementary specialties to bear on our mutual markets. For example, BlueArc is well known in verticals like Oil & Gas and Media & Entertainment, while Hitachi Data Systems serves other verticals such as Telecommunications and Financial Services. Our complementary market specializations have allowed us to address the overall market gaining confidence and momentum along the way. Well, from today we can address all customers, all markets and all verticals as one Hitachi.

For HDS, we have many reference grade implementations of our joint vision with BlueArc across a variety of verticals. Here are some quotes from a bank and a telecommunication services company:

• Yes Bank – “Hitachi’s proven mature product, clear roadmap, budgets for research, and their having served the enterprise segment of storage for more than a decade, prompted us to approach them. They completely understood market requirements.” Mitesh Toila, Senior Vice President
• Ziggo – “The storage platform from Hitachi Data Systems offers us maximum flexibility in supporting the organization, which is essential in the dynamic telecom market.” Peter de Boer, Manager of Core Systems

These praises would not have been possible without BlueArc’s innovative technologies and collective team expertise. Moving forward I know we will see many more implementations at a quickened pace and of a heightened caliber as BlueArc culture infuses the Hitachi team with their pioneering spirit. Further I look forward to being able to meld our mutual companies’ IP together intermingling our unique attributes and benefits into a superior aggregated portfolio. Stay tuned and watch our progress!

Finally, I want to welcome all of my new colleagues to Hitachi and state that we all look forward to working with you to better address the market and our customers’ needs. I truly believe that you’ll find working with the family I know as Hitachi a special experience in your career. That is because “Hitachi’s honest intentions are to improve society, which we talk about through our concept of the Social Innovation Business.” (Hay, HDS as a Member of the Hitachi Family: The View From Japan).