New operations in Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands bring greater choice to enterprise organisations requiring open storage solutions
31 March 2000 — Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd (NYSE: HIT), today announces its expansion in Europe with the start of operations in Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. The move will provide large and medium sized organisations greater choice of supplier for high availability, open storage solutions. Hitachi Data Systems also confirmed its continued support for existing users of Hitachi solutions in these countries.
The expansion in Europe is a further demonstration of Hitachi Data Systems' strategy to increase its share of the $10 billion* open storage market that exists in Europe. With offices being established in the primary business centres of each country, Hitachi Data Systems will also be focusing on supporting existing users of Hitachi storage and server solutions.
"The Internet age brings enormous opportunities for every business, but crucial to success is an IT infrastructure that can support rapidly changing demands," said John Taffinder chief operating officer, Europe, Hitachi Data Systems. "Our expansion in Europe is a response to the burgeoning e-business market in Europe and the consequent vast demand for open storage solutions. We have already experienced huge success with Hitachi products in these new countries and users are demanding access to a greater portfolio of our solutions. We see this as an excellent opportunity to broaden our penetration of these markets, by making our solutions available to a wide range of medium and large organisations. By creating a direct route into these new markets, working with the local distributors and resellers in each country we will provide greater choice for our customers and extend our leadership in the storage solutions market."
Hitachi Data Systems is actively recruiting distributors and corporate reseller partners to support its re-entry to the new territories, in line with its global strategy to offer customers choice of partners. The company's global two-tiered reseller programme, Channel One, which was recently awarded Gartner Group's Best Channel Strategy Award, includes the establishment of a market development team to create sales opportunities for partners to deliver and install solutions. In some instances, where customer demand requires it, Hitachi Data Systems will also put in place key account managers. Since Channel One's launch in July 1999, Hitachi Data Systems has already signed seven distributors and eighty corporate resellers in Europe.
Hitachi Data Systems provides a range of business solutions to meet the needs of the very largest organisations to medium-sized companies who demand the highest reliability and availability. Its storage subsystems are the most open available in the industry, capable of supporting multi-platform environments. The product range includes the Hitachi Freedom Storage™ 7700E, the most powerful and flexible multi-platform storage subsystem available for 7x24 data centres and the Hitachi Freedom Storage 5800 Series, which is the highest performing storage subsystem in its class. It is offered for use with clustered servers in Windows NT™ , UNIX™ and NetWare™ environments.
* IDC European Disk Systems Market Report, 1999
For further information about the products and solutions offered by Hitachi Data Systems please see separate document, available from the Hitachi Data Systems press office.
Hitachi Data Systems Europe press releases are available at http://www.eu.hds.com/corporate/press-analyst-center/press-releases/
Committed to helping customers exploit the value of information technology for success in the Internet economy, Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT), is a leading provider of business solutions for the world's most information-intensive corporations. For further information on Hitachi Data Systems, access www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 1998 (ended March 31, 1999) consolidated sales of 7,977 billion yen ($65.9 billion). The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's Web site at http://www.hitachi.co.jp.
¹ At an exchange rate of 124 yen to the dollar.
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