Releases

posted on 28 February 2008 11:52

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — February 27, 2008 — Hitachi America, Ltd., Hitachi Data Systems, and Hitachi Consulting, three business units of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today jointly announced their support for the Microsoft 2008 Global Launch Wave featuring Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008.

Together the three Hitachi businesses will enable thousands of customers around the globe to optimize their corporate infrastructure for applications based on the latest Microsoft application platform.

Hitachi is a leading global provider of information technology, supporting some of the largest SQL Server—based implementations in the world. Together with Microsoft, three Hitachi companies will enable thousands of organizations to optimize their corporate infrastructure. Hitachi’s support includes industry—leading server and storage systems optimized for SQL Server 2008 and a worldwide team of consultants ready to deploy SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Server 2008. Our Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status and dedicated technology investments help ensure customer success.

Hitachi Server Systems supplies highly scalable, performance—oriented blade server platforms.

Hitachi Data Systems delivers the most trusted storage solutions to the most demanding companies.

Hitachi Consulting is a recognized leader in delivering business and technology solutions.

"In today’s dynamic market, companies require an IT infrastructure that can adapt and grow with their business while protecting their current investments," said Steve Campbell, marketing and solutions vice president, of Hitachi America, Ltd. "We are proud to deliver high—performance servers, including our new BladeSymphony blade platform, which are optimized for the new Microsoft application platform and offer the flexibility and scalability that our mutual customers demand."

Hitachi America, Ltd: BladeSymphony® Blade Servers Support Microsoft Application Platform
Hitachi America, Ltd., Server Systems Group a leading provider of advanced server technology offers a line—up of BladeSymphony enterprise—class blade platforms. The BladeSymphony family of blade servers addresses the computing needs for all tiers of the datacenter, delivering superior performance, modular scalability, and flexibility for Microsoft application platforms. BladeSymphony supports firmware embedded virtualization "Virtage" and Itanium® 16—way symmetric multi—processor (SMP) blade implementation, to match a range of application requirements. Together, BladeSymphony and Microsoft enable companies to reduce total cost of ownership and protect customers’ long—term IT investments. For more information, please visit www.bladesymphony.com.

Hitachi Data Systems: Storage Solutions Optimized for Microsoft—Based Applications
Hitachi Data Systems Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) and the only provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions. By leveraging Services Oriented Storage Solutions from Hitachi Data Systems, Microsoft customers benefit from a true optimized storage environment based on their business—critical demands. Hitachi Data Systems offers unmatched scalability and performance to support the largest enterprise SQL Server and Windows Server environments through its Services Oriented Storage Solutions approach. For more information, please visit www.hds.com.

"Organizations of all sizes demand an optimized platform that allows powerful storage services to be deployed across their entire storage infrastructure, with the highest levels of performance, scalability and availability to meet the demands of their most critical business applications," said Hu Yoshida, chief technology officer of Hitachi Data Systems. "We have delivered on those requirements for thousands of Microsoft customers around the globe and we look forward to building on this success through our support of the next—generation Microsoft application platform featuring SQL Server 2008."

Hitachi Consulting: World—Class Solution on the Microsoft Application Platform
Hitachi Consulting, the global consulting company of Hitachi, Ltd. recently introduced a new suite of Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) service offerings focused on Business Intelligence and Performance Management at the Edge of the Enterprise.

The BIPM at the Edge of the EnterpriseSM suite of offerings help companies improve functions that have not traditionally had access to performance management and business intelligence capabilities. Hitachi Consulting’s vision is to equip an entire organization’s resources with the tools and information they need to enhance performance. The offering suite leverages Microsoft’s integrated platform of BI technologies, including SQL Server 2008, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and PerformancePoint Server 2008.

"Organizations traditionally deploy business intelligence solutions to core functions like finance, operations and senior management. Hitachi Consulting is helping companies become more market responsive by extending the traditional suite of BI tools and solutions to the Edge of the Enterprise," said Drew Naukam, Managing Vice President, Hitachi Consulting Microsoft Strategic Service Line.

"Our customers are excited about the vibrant ecosystem that has developed around Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008," said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Server and Tools Business Microsoft Corp. "The high quality products and technologies from Hitachi Server Systems, Hitachi Data Systems and Hitachi Consulting will enable customers to derive real value from these new offerings literally from day one."