The Art of Information

The week’s travels throughout Japan and to Hong Kong only strengthened my position that digital information is the global currency.  While visiting a variety of HDS’ and Hitachi Ltd’s divisions here, one in particular brought home how small our world has become that data, albeit in different languages and forms, is the most universal asset we have.

While visiting Hitachi’s Enterprise Server Division (ESD) which designs and manufactures our BladeSymphony blade servers, (yes, Hitachi makes servers!), a product brochure caught my eye. On page 3, I found the following as part of the introduction to ESD’s overall product strategy: “Lifestyle Revolution: Information society where secure (data) services are granted to anyone, anytime, anywhere.”

Turning the page, the story continued with Hitachi’s “Concept of Information Lifeline” and the “Advent of the Ubiquitous Information Society”. Perhaps what struck me the most as I stood in lobby awaiting the tour of ESD’s manufacturing center, was a graphic that made the simple comparison of information to other “utilities” like electricity, gas, water.

“Information is a requisite in personal life and corporate activities like “electricity”, “gas”, and “water”. Secure, free, and transparent use of information services by anyone, anytime, anywhere.”

Now, while the theme of “data and information as our most valuable asset” has been a constant for my own writing, thinking, and approach to storage and other technologies over the past 10 years, I thought that it was by virtue of living in the US. I was thrilled to find this half a world away, even if I was a bit ashamed of my own too-narrow world view.

What excites me as much is the potential for HDS and Hitachi Ltd’s opportunities as the world, and both our personal and professional lives, continue to evolve towards an information-centric lifestyle. While HDS has always focused on storing, sharing, protecting our customer’s valuable digital assets, to see ESD, Hitachi Consulting, and other parts of Hitachi’s broad business portfolio focused on further enabling the information society is exciting and should benefit our customers worldwide.

Please stay tuned for more posts and future solutions and other announcements from HDS and Hitachi as we continue to focus on supporting our customer’s information infrastructures, locally and globally.