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Even by the standards of today's alliance-obsessed business environment, this one's big. In a far-reaching, multi-billion-dollar agreement, Sun, Hitachi Ltd., and Hitachi Data Systems have joined forces to deliver a broad range of upgraded products and services targeted at the most demanding enterprise customers.
"This is a very significant relationship for Sun and will increase our competitive leadership position," said Ed Zander, Sun's President and Chief Operating Officer. "It's turbocharging our ability to meet the needs of customers in the high-end data center."
Initially, the relationship will focus on three strategic elements:
Sun will distribute a line of high-end storage systems called the Sun StorEdge[tm] 9900 Series, based on the award-winning Hitachi Freedom Storage Lighting 9900 family. The new systems are specifically tailored to the demands of the glass house, where heterogeneity (including mainframe connectivity), storage consolidation, and levels of availability approaching Six Sigma are required. The Sun StorEdge 9900 Series complements and adds value to the current Sun StorEdge product family, including the highly successful Sun StorEdge[tm] T3 arrays. Equally important, the high-end storage systems will be supported by three jointly staffed, mission-critical support centers worldwide, so customers can receive prompt service and support with a single phone call.
Sun and Hitachi Data Systems will cross-license and distribute each other's highly successful storage software products. This helps both Sun and Hitachi customers plan and automate their storage networks across the enterprise. Sun and Hitachi also intend to enhance their storage software products to offer higher levels of interoperability with each other's storage hardware products.
Sun/Hitachi product combinations will be sold by Sun's existing direct sales force, and by existing certified channels. In Asia Pacific, an integration capabilities agreement will allow Hitachi to sell Sun's products and Sun/Hitachi product combinations.
In addition, the relationship gives Hitachi and its multiple subsidiaries broader access to Sun's large, well-established channel and its myriad distribution options, with over 10,000 additional sales personnel and over 30,000 additional channel partners in 170 countries.
Sun's Storage Captures Number One Spot in UNIX® Storage Market for the Third Year in a Row!
Gartner Dataquest officially released its independent numbers on U.S. information storage units ranking Sun Microsystems Inc. atop the UNIX® storage market for the third year in a row, confirming that Sun is No. 1 in worldwide revenue of the consolidated UNIX storage market.
Serves Notice to Competitors
The Sun/Hitachi relationship brings together a formidable collection of individual strengths:
Sun's impressive credentials as a thought leader of the Net Economy and infrastructure vendor of choice to thousands of enterprises
Hitachi's reputation for high-quality, high-performance hardware and global service and support
Sun's worldwide network of sales professionals and channel partners
Hitachi Data Systems' stature as a leading vendor of state-of-the-art, high-end enterprise storage solutions
Sun's extensive track record as a major player and technology leader in the storage arena
Through the relationship, these individual strengths are transformed into new competitive advantages for each company. "Sun's relationship with Hitachi helps both companies leapfrog EMC, IBM, and other competitors in major markets," said Ed Zander. "It serves notice that current economic conditions haven't altered our strategic goals; that we are more committed to quality, freedom of choice, and expanded options for our customers than ever; and that collaboration will continue to be a central element in our quest to satisfy our customers' requirements."
"The complementary skills that Sun and Hitachi bring to each other will help both companies achieve continuing success in their businesses," said Hiroaki Nakanishi, Managing Officer and General Manager, International Operations Group, Information and Telecommunication Systems Group, Hitachi, Ltd.
Helps Sun's "Three Big Bets" Pay Off for Customers
At the beginning of the new millennium, Ed Zander identified three major areas of focus and investment: massive scalability, continuous realtime computing, and integrated stacks. The Hitachi relationship is aligned with those goals and is designed to improve Sun's delivery of the benefits to customers. For example:
Massive Scalability: With the addition of the Sun StorEdge 9900 Series, Sun now offers large integrated and modular (Sun StorEdge T3) storage systems that scale all the way from small workgroups through mid-sized corporations to some of the largest enterprise and Internet data centers. That means customers should be able to scale their storage capacity seamlessly as their needs grow — without changing the applications or operating system they use. And they can add resources in the increments they need, on the fly.
Continuous Realtime: The Sun StorEdge 9900 Series is designed to deliver extreme levels of availability and performance to ultra-heterogeneous environments, besting virtually all of its competitors through superior architecture and modern design. This helps ensure that the applications backed by the Sun StorEdge 9900 series can deliver continuous data uptime. Already known for their exceptional Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS) features, Sun servers and storage should now have an additional competitive edge at the very high end.
Integrated Stacks: For customers to achieve the highest levels of availability for their mission-critical applications, it is important that they deploy tightly integrated and tested systems that can be supported simply. Sun is working hard to ensure that such systems are available, and the Sun StorEdge 9900 Series adds additional assurance for customers at the very high end. The relationship with Hitachi should expand Sun's ability to offer pre-configured, pre-integrated, pre-tested combinations of products that are certified to work together and that meet stringent quality criteria. The result for customers: the ability to quickly implement an end-to-end solution that is designed to deliver high availability and performance, protect your investments, and scale with demand for network services — all leading to higher profitability and reduced risk.
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