To: Greg Hull who wrote (3402 ) 6/11/2001 11:19:30 AM From: Greg Hull Respond to of 4808 Monday June 11, 5:44 am Eastern Time Hitachi, Microsoft to join hands on data storage TOKYO, June 11 (Reuters) - Hitachi Ltd said on Monday it had agreed with U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) to jointly develop and market storage products in a bid to boost one of its fastest-growing businesses. The two will set up a research facility next week in Tokyo to develop networks able to link disparate elements of a corporate database such as inventory, personnel and procurement and manage them as a single system. The new system will use a Microsoft server and Hitachi's Sanrise storage products, which recorded sales of 240 billion yen ($1.99 billion) globally last year. Hitachi's computer division, which has shifted its focus from mainframe computers to storage, posted 33.9 billion yen in operating profits for the business year ended March 31, far above a target of 6.0 billion yen. It forecasts that figure to more than double to 71 billion yen for the year to March 2002. In June 2000, Hitachi and Microsoft formed a comprehensive alliance and Monday's move is part of that tie-up, said Ikuo Kimura, general manager at Hitachi's storage area network systems solution division. Kimura said the new business would initially target corporate clients in Japan and aim for overseas markets later. ``Storage service providers have been good customers but we would like to target all-round clients,'' he said. The global storage market, which was worth $34 billion in 2000, is expected to grow to $39 billion this year and to $48 billion in 2003, Kimura added. Shares in Hitachi closed down 1.4 percent at 1,272 yen on Monday as the benchmark Nikkei index dropped 1.52 percent. biz.yahoo.com