Independent Market Research Confirms Hitachi Data Systems Far Outranks EMC and IBM in Customer Service, Support, and Technical Performance
SANTA CLARA, California. — October 17, 2002 — Hitachi Data Systems, the world's fastest growing enterprise storage provider and a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today announced that an independent market research survey conducted by FIND/SVP found that 86 percent of all global Hitachi Data Systems customers report they are "extremely satisfied" or "very satisfied" with service and support, far outstripping competitive rankings
Hitachi Data Systems also received higher ratings on a global basis than competitor EMC on 18 of 19 service and support criteria, including understanding customer requirements, quality of service, and concurrent data migration. Hitachi Data Systems also maintains the best competitive satisfaction scores for storage equipment performance, rating up to 95 percent satisfaction with technical performance.
"Customer satisfaction is our number one priority at Hitachi Data Systems," said Dave Roberson, president and COO, Hitachi Data Systems. "It's gratifying to know that our efforts in quality of service, technology, and support are all ranked so highly for the second year in a row with our customers worldwide. Our high customer satisfaction ranking, combined with recent growth in hardware and software market share solidifies Hitachi Data Systems as a formidable competitor in the storage industry."
"HDS has a clear understanding of our present and future storage needs and delivers solutions that meet our strenuous requirements for performance and availability," said Phil Brown, senior manager, Operations, Focal Communications Corporation. "We are constantly impressed with the technical performance of the products as well as the service and support we receive from Hitachi Data Systems."
The survey was conducted in the United States as well as the global regions including Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and Asia Pacific and International Americas (APIA) to confirm the issues that customers use to evaluate the performance of the customer service and support of their data storage providers.
Hitachi Data Systems bested EMC most noticeably on the following criteria:
Satisfaction with Hitachi Data Systems technical performance of storage equipment ranks highest by far against the competition, with a high of 95 percent satisfaction in EMEA, 85 percent in APIA and 81 percent in the US. By comparison, EMC's highest rating in this category was 66 percent satisfaction (in the US), and IBM's 65 percent satisfaction (in EMEA.)
The survey also revealed that a high majority of customers deploy storage from more than one vendor, reporting 92 percent of US customers, 81 percent of EMEA customers, and 86 percent of APIA customers have heterogeneous storage systems. Additionally, 43 percent of all respondents have over half their storage needs serviced by Hitachi Data Systems.
Hitachi Data Systems commissioned the survey from FIND/SVP, third-party knowledge services company, that serves more than 75,000 executives in 11,000 companies worldwide. The objectives of the survey were to confirm the issues that customers use to evaluate the performance of the customer service and support of their data storage providers, and to define Hitachi Data systems strengths and weaknesses from customers' viewpoint, to pinpoint areas requiring improvement or areas holding strategic leverage opportunities. FIND/SVP surveyed 222 customers globally at the senior manager to executive management level in the United States, EMEA and APIA regions. Comprised of primarily HDS customers, the each company surveyed had at least 10 percent HDS, EMC, and/or IBM storage systems installed.
Hitachi Data Systems is committed to enabling organizations worldwide to exploit the full potential of information. By following and deploying our TrueNorth™ strategy, we provide customers with a broad range of storage solutions to simplify, protect and optimize their information infrastructures. Our offerings include enterprise and modular storage systems and software, professional services, fully complemented by best-of-breed products through industry alliances.
With 2,700 employees, Hitachi Data Systems conducts business through direct sales and resellers in the public, government and private sectors in over 170 countries and regions on six continents. Its customers include more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company, with approximately 320,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2001 (ended March 31, 2002) consolidated sales totaled 7,994 billion yen ($60.1 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors, including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com.
*At an exchange rate of 133 yen to the dollar.
Contacts: PR
Jodi Reinman, Hitachi Data Systems, (408) 970-1050, jodi.reinman@hds.com
© Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd.
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