With More than Five Petabytes of Storage Sold in TwoYears, Expanded Relationship Provides Customers Greater Choice,Value and Innovation
PALO ALTO, CaliforniaTOKYO and SANTA CLARA, California -August 25, 2003 - SunMicrosystems, Hitachi, Ltd., and its wholly-owned subsidiary,Hitachi Data Systems today announced that they have extended theterms of their global distributor agreements and relatedcollaborative agreements for an additional two years, 12 monthsbefore the existing agreement was due for renewal. The originalagreement, signed in August 2001 and now extended through 2006, hasenabled both companies to successfully deliver high-availabilityand high-performance end-to-end data center solutions.
"This partnership is a win for Sun, HDS and Sun customers," saidMark Canepa, executive vice president of Sun Network Storage. "Weare able to solve critical customer problems such as data centerconsolidation and application availability with a best of breedproduct. At the same time, we are able to deliver to our customersa fully tested and integrated end-to-end IT solution with a singleservice contract for support."
"Hitachi is pleased to extend our partnership with Sun, whichhas allowed us to expand our customer base as well as assert ourleadership in data center storage," said Dave Roberson, presidentand chief operating officer of Hitachi Data Systems. "Thisagreement provides proof that both companies are committed todriving forward the concept that collaboration is vital in anindustry where customers require open, interoperable,high-performance storage solutions from trusted vendors."
Since the original agreement, Sun has supplied more than fivepetabytes and 90,000 drives of Sun StorEdge™ 9900 seriessystems, based on the Hitachi Freedom Storage™ Lightning9900™ V Series platform. Market share for these products hasgrown from zero to almost 10 percent in less than 18 months (IDC,March 2003).
"We decided to upgrade and consolidate our data storageenvironment into two Sun StorEdge 9980s in order to realize greaterefficiencies," said Ken Karls, SAP Service Line Manager for DowCorning. "Not only have we reduced the cost and complexity of ourcomputing environment, but we have been very pleased by theseamless experience and continuous uptime during a migration thattook place in only three weeks."
Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will extendtheir collaboration for hardware, software and services toseamlessly provide improved integration and ease of management incomplex environments. Collaboration between the companies consistsof marketing, sales support, services and joint customer supportcenters, in order to provide a better experience for customers inthe form of management, interoperability and flexibility in theareas of business continuance and storage management. The extendedagreement provides increased investment protection for customers asa result of the continued joint innovation.
"We have been very pleased with our Sun StorEdge 9900 system andselected Sun for its solutions approach to data center storage,"Michael Bembenek, director of IT, Systems Engineering, Sybase, Inc."The integration between Sun's servers, software and servicesallows us to realize a greater total cost of ownership from our ITinvestment."
"The Sun/Hitachi relationship has been a win for both companies,as well as Sun customers, who benefit from a world class datacenter offering," said Randy Kerns, partner, Evaluator Group. "Inthe end, Sun has gained competency and expertise in data centerstorage as a result of this partnership, and can offer customersthis solution as part of its own portfolio and as part of the Sunend-to-end infrastructure."
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Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is aleading global electronics company, with approximately 340,000employees worldwide. Fiscal 2002 (ended March 31, 2003)consolidated sales totaled 8,191.7 billion yen ($68.3 billion). Thecompany offers a wide range of systems, products and services inmarket sectors, including information systems, electronic devices,power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials andfinancial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visitthe company's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com.
Hitachi Data Systems is committed to enabling organizationsworldwide to exploit the full potential of information. Byfollowing and deploying our TrueNorth™ strategy, we providecustomers with a broad range of storage solutions to simplify,protect and optimize their information infrastructures. Ourofferings include centralized and distributed storage systems andsoftware, professional services, complemented by best-of-breedproducts through channel partners and industry alliances.
With 2,700 employees, Hitachi Data Systems conducts businessthrough direct and indirect channels in the public, government andprivate sectors in over 170 countries and regions. Its customersinclude more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. For moreinformation, please visit our Web site at www.hds.com.
Contacts: PR
Jodi Reinman, Hitachi Data Systems, (408) 970-1050,jodi.reinman@hds.com
Holly Duncan, Sun Microsystems, Inc.,(650) 786-0745, holly.duncan@sun.com
© Hitachi Data Systems isregistered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademarkand service mark of Hitachi, Ltd.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun log, SunStorEdge, The Network Is The Computer and SunNetwork are trademarksor registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the UnitedStates and other countries.
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