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Hitachi Appoints Universal Storage Platform Visionary and Former COO Minoru Kosuge As CEO of Hitachi Data Systems

Posted on: Tuesday, 29 May 2007, 09:00 CDT

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT) and the only provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions, today announced the appointment of Minoru Kosuge as chief executive officer. Mr. Kosuge is known as the chief architect of the revolutionary Hitachi Universal Storage Platform. The company also announced that storage software innovator Jack Domme has been promoted to chief operating officer of Hitachi Data Systems from his current position as executive vice president, Global Solutions Strategy and Development.

Mr. Kosuge succeeds Dave Roberson, who served as president and chief executive officer of Hitachi Data Systems and recently joined HP as senior vice president and general manager of HP StorageWorks. HP and Hitachi have a long-standing partnership; HP OEMs the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform and Network Storage Controller. Mr. Roberson's appointment at HP deepens an already strong relationship between the two companies.

"After a successful 26 year career at Hitachi, I would like to thank Dave Roberson for his significant contributions to extending our leadership in the storage industry," said Dr. Naoya Takahashi, senior vice president and executive officer, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Information & Telecommunication Systems Group; chief executive officer of Platform Business, Information & Telecommunication Systems Group, Hitachi, Ltd. "Mr. Kosuge and Mr. Domme bring a very strong customer focus and have a proven track record in leading the creation and delivery of Services Oriented Storage Solutions to the market. With these key leadership changes in place, Hitachi Data Systems is extremely well positioned to capitalize on its current industry momentum and advance the creation and adoption of our best-in-class Services Oriented Storage Solutions to enterprises of all sizes worldwide."

Regarded as a storage industry pioneer for leading the development of the revolutionary Hitachi Universal Storage Platform™ -- with many industry firsts such as controller-based virtualization, logical partitioning, and storage-agnostic, heterogeneous replication -- Mr. Kosuge's leadership contributed significantly to the growth and market share gains of the Hitachi Storage Solutions Group. In his prior role as chief operating officer of Hitachi Data Systems, Mr. Kosuge successfully led a worldwide executive team responsible for corporate and product strategy, IT management, logistics planning and operations. Prior to this, Mr. Kosuge was division president of Hitachi, Ltd.'s legendary Disk Array Systems Division (RSD) in Odawara, Japan, where he managed the successful development of Hitachi's industry-leading enterprise and modular storage systems that transcended the boundaries of other products in the market.

"With a steadfast commitment to innovation, Hitachi has repeatedly introduced storage solutions that have enabled our customers worldwide to receive an impressive return on their storage investments," said Minoru Kosuge, CEO, Hitachi Data Systems. "I look forward to working with Jack Domme and our proven leadership team to continue the company's positive growth trajectory and market share gains."

Under Mr. Domme's leadership of the Hitachi Data Systems Global Solutions Strategy and Development Group, Hitachi has expanded its addressable market in several high-growth areas, including storage management software, high-performance file computing, and content archive services with the recent acquisition of Archivas, Inc. Hitachi is delivering common storage services for these areas across heterogeneous storage assets, whether file, object or block-based -- marking the beginning of a new era in storage service delivery.

"Over the past two years, Hitachi has made great strides in expanding into high-growth markets and tapping new revenue streams," said Jack Domme, COO, Hitachi Data Systems. "I am excited at the opportunity to lead a world-class organization that has been extremely successful in solving customer challenges associated with managing the explosive growth of structured data. We are now poised to lead in unstructured data environments with solutions such as the new Hitachi Content Archive Platform Version 2.0."

The game-changing storage innovation that customers have come to expect from Hitachi continues at a rapid pace as evidenced by the company's recent announcements of the new Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V, Dynamic Provisioning software, Services Oriented Storage Solutions and the new Hitachi Content Archive Platform Version 2.0 announced today (see separate press release). Today's executive management announcement coupled with the introduction of these solutions to the marketplace further widens the innovation gap between Hitachi and the competition.

About Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation provides Services Oriented Storage Solutions that enable heterogeneous storage to be dynamically provisioned according to business needs and centrally managed via industry-leading Hitachi storage virtualization software. As an integral part of the Hitachi Storage Solutions Group, Hitachi Data Systems delivers storage infrastructure platforms, storage management software, and storage consulting services through direct and indirect channels in over 170 countries and regions. Its customers include nearly 60-percent of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit the company's Web site at http://www.hds.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE:HIT) (TOKYO:6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 384,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2006 (ended March 31, 2007) consolidated revenues totaled 10,247 billion yen ($86.8 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 website at http://www.hitachi.com.

© 2007, Hitachi is a registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Hitachi Data Systems is a registered trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks, services marks, company names are properties of their respective owners.

Source: Business Wire

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