Company Strengthens its Strategies for Growth in Italy with the Appointment of a New Country Manager with Core Focus on Sales and Storage Solutions
MILAN, ITALY - April 26, 2005 - Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) today announced the appointment of Stefano Manna as the new Country Manager in Italy. Manna will be in charge of the local development of the Hitachi Data Systems sales division and also the consolidation of the company's market share by focusing on Services Oriented Storage Solutions, which offers customers advanced storage solutions capable of reducing the gap between the companies' business needs and IT infrastructures.
The appointment of the new Italian country manager is in line with the global sales division's plans for growth, led by Scott Genereux, executive vice president and general manager of Worldwide Sales, Channels and Support, Hitachi Data Systems. The goal is to build major new business opportunities for the company, especially in the markets offering strong growth opportunities.
"The appointment of Stefano Manna as the new Italian Country Manager strengthens our world-wide presence in the market and also our position as a leading storage solution provider," said Genereux. "I believe that Stefano, with his many years of sales experience working for major systems integrators, software vendors and storage providers, together with his status as a well-known professional in the field, is the right person to extend our solution focused sales strategy to one of the most promising regions in EMEA: the Italian market is a strong and growing region for HDS."
As well as direct sales, Stefano Manna is responsible for strengthening Hitachi Data Systems Italia's indirect sales operation. He will be able to leverage recently implemented partner recruitment programs, as well as the renewal of relationships with Italian and pan-European business partners and resellers.
"I enthusiastically accepted this opportunity and new professional challenge," commented Stefano Manna. "Hitachi Data Systems Italia is a company that I have seen develop into one of the key players in the market in recent years. My goal is to consolidate the company's position in the Italian market and further increase its presence in strong growth areas such as Services Oriented Storage Solutions. The priority areas I intend to work on right away include plans for development of the Italian channel and strengthening of our alliances with local partners and resellers, together with the development of direct sales. I believe Hitachi Data Systems' solutions offer a truly innovative response to the needs of the enterprise sector, as well as small and medium businesses, who stand to gain important benefits from HDS strategies focusing on simplification and security in infrastructures."
Hitachi Data Systems is one of the first vendors to offer innovative virtualization functions based on the TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform. This is laying the foundations for a new suite of Services Oriented Storage Solutions solutions representing a turning point in storage management in which technological infrastructures serve business applications.
Stefano Manna, born in 1961, started his career in 1987 with Datamat S.p.A., one of Italy's biggest systems integrators. He then moved to Canada, where he gained important experience as a systems engineer and in the pre-sales sector working for Fulcrum Technologies Inc., a software house specializing in Information Retrieval and Document Management. In 1991, he moved back to Italy to work on the Canadian company's start-up as Telecommunications Sales Manager. From 1996 to 1998 Manna was Senior Account Manager for Informix Software S.p.A., serving the biggest companies in central Italy. After a brief spell working for a CAD/CAM software and data management company, in 1999 Manna joined EMC Computer Systems S.p.A., where he gained significant experience in Enterprise Storage Solutions, first as District Sales Manager and then as Area Sales Manager serving the Telecommunications, Media & xSPs markets in Italy and Spain. He was later promoted to sales manager for central and southern Italy where he was in charge of a staff of over 100.
Hitachi Data Systems leverages global R&D resources to develop storage solutions built on industry-leading technology with the performance, availability and scalability to maximize customers' ROI and minimize their risk. By focusing on the customer's perspective as we apply the best hardware, software, and services from Hitachi and our partners, we uniquely satisfy our customers' business needs.
With 2,900 employees, Hitachi Data Systems conducts business through direct and indirect channels in the public, government and private sectors in over 170 countries and regions. 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. (NYSE: HIT), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company, with approximately 326,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2003 (ended March 31, 2004) consolidated sales totaled 8,632.4 billion yen ($81.4 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 www.hitachi.com.
Paola Sipione
Hitachi Data Systems
Tel +39 02 4030921
paola.sipione@hds.com
Paola Carugo
Hill & Knowlton
Tel +39 02 319141
pcarugo@hillandknowlton.com
© 2005, Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. 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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