Hitachi Data Systems Promotes Top U.S. Executive Dave RobersonFollowing Record Company Performance in FY'01

Roberson To Focus on Furthering the Company's Momentum in the Data Storage Industry in 2002

Santa Clara, California, May 21, 2002 — Hitachi Data Systems, the world's fastest growing enterprise storage provider and a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today announced the promotion of its top US executive, Dave Roberson, to President and Chief Operating Officer from his former position as Chief Operating Officer, following the company's record performance in fiscal year 2001. Roberson will focus on furthering the company's momentum in the data storage industry in the coming year.

"Dave Roberson's initiative and vision have enabled Hitachi Data Systems to become the world's fastest-growing storage company in the past year," said Shinjiro Iwata, Chief Executive Officer, Hitachi Data Systems. "Mr. Roberson has molded the organization into an entrepreneurial global solutions company that moves at the velocity of the industry. We are confident that his leadership will enable us to succeed at its goal of becoming the world's leading storage solutions provider by 2004."

Roberson is an accomplished industry veteran with considerable expertise in all areas of business leadership. In his twenty-one years at Hitachi Data Systems, Roberson has headed up virtually every department at the company - including IT Services, Finance, Human Resources, Training, and Organizational Development, among others. In the past two years, Hitachi Data Systems has built extraordinary momentum in the data storage industry, unseating EMC and IBM to achieve the fastest growth rates for shipments of enterprise storage hardware and software. Mr. Roberson was recently named one of the "50 Most Powerful People in Networking" by Network Computing and honored by DM Review with the "2001 DMReview 100" award.

Continuing the momentum of his leadership, Roberson and other Hitachi Data Systems executives introduced Hitachi's TrueNorth initiative, a vision and strategy for open information management designed to provide enterprise customers with freedom of choice in integrating best-of-breed products to manage their storage infrastructures, while leveraging high-performance storage systems. In doing so, the company set a new industry standard for a collaborative approach to storage management, and furthered its leadership position in the industry. "Hitachi Data Systems has posted impressive gains in market share, revenues, and petabyte shipments over the past two years, and I am honored to accept more responsibility at this key juncture for the company," said Dave Roberson, president and chief operating officer, Hitachi Data Systems. "Hitachi Data Systems is comprised of the finest talent and most advanced technology in the world, and we plan to utilize our vast resources to seize the leadership position in the data storage market by 2004. With our TrueNorth initiative, we are continuing our collaborative approach to the storage market, leveraging the alliances we've built with the best providers of solutions for our customers, and driving industry standards that will ease the challenges customers face in managing multi-vendor environments."

Highlights of Hitachi Data Systems' results from fiscal year 2001:

• For the fiscal year 2001 (ended March, 2002), Hitachi/HDS' shipped a total of 18.1 petabytes, representing 84.6 percent growth from 9.8 petabytes shipped in fiscal year 2000, with 74.7 percent growth at the high-end, and 163.6 percent growth in the mid-range.
• Hitachi/HDS' overall revenue grew from $2 billion in FY'00 to $2.08 billion in FY'01, in sharp contrast to the sharp revenue declines experienced by most its competitors.
• According to recent report from Gartner Dataquest (March 2002), Hitachi Data Systems is the world's fastest growing supplier of storage management software, having achieved 59.4 percent annual growth in revenue in CY 2001, dramatically outpacing the overall market growth rate of 3 percent. Hitachi Data Systems' sales of storage management software rose to $91.5 million, placing the company in the top 10 for worldwide storage software market share for the first time.

Hitachi Data Systems is a leading supplier of storage hardware, software, solutions and services. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), Japan's largest electronics company, HDS is committed to providing the technological infrastructure for the world's most information-intensive corporations. With 2,600 employees, Hitachi Data Systems does business in the public and private sectors in 170 countries and regions on six continents, including the rapidly emerging economies in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. Its customers include more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies, and all of the major Storage Service Providers (SSPs). For more information, please visit the HDS Web site at http://www.hds.com/.

Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 2001 (ended March 31, 2002) consolidated sales of 7,993.7 billion yen ($60.1 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.com.

Contacts: PR
Jodi Reinman, Hitachi Data Systems, (408) 970.1050, jodi.reinman@hds.com

At an exchange rate of 133 yen to the dollar.

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