Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is undergoing an interesting re-make. An acquisition
in early 2009 has opened up vistas beyond enterprise storage and has the firm dabbling in a fast growing market. Robert Chu, the firm’s vice president for Asia Pacific, explains the transition in an interview.
Q. Hitachi is known more for enterprise storage than for consumer applications. Is the company making some sort of a transition to become a more consumer-oriented one? If so,
why and how?
Yes. In addition to growing our core enterprise, mobile, desktop and CE hard drive business, Hitachi GST announced the acquisition of Fabrik, Inc. in February 2009.
Fabrik, whose leading storage brands include G-Technology and SimpleTech, strategically positions Hitachi in the fast-growing external storage business.
This was a natural extension of our business as vertically-integrated suppliers hold a competitive advantage in the
consumer and professional external storage market.
The acquisition of Fabrik strategically expands Hitachi GST’s market presence and customer base, strengthens our
product portfolio, and lays the foundation for the next phase of our business transformation.
Personal storage is a large and growing market opportunity. Industry analyst firm IDC expects worldwide personal storage device shipments to grow from approximately 52 million in 2008 to 123 million in 2012.
Q. What are the digital lifestyle products that Hitachi has or is bringing out?
Hitachi is committed to both of Fabrik’s product lines – SimpleTech and G-Technology. Fabrik’s business will form the core of Hitachi GST’s newly-formed Branded Business
division.
Our personal and professional external storage products are clearly defined and marketed to two segments. The SimpleTech by Hitachi brand offers simple, stylish portable and desktop external storage and backup solutions for mainstream PC consumers and small business market.
On the other hand, our G-Technology brand delivers premium, high-performance storage solutions for the Mac, creative pro, photography and A/V markets. We expect the products to be available in Asia Pacific later this year.
Hitachi GST is committed to the Indian market, and currently we have strong local support and sales team in India. We see potential growth in India’s storage industry and it will certainly play in Hitachi’s growth.
We constantly evaluate and identify opportunities to improve our foothold and operations in India and to strengthen our local team in the market.
Q. Hitachi being a conglomerate that also makes LCD screens, etc, is Hitachi going to bring out an iPod/iPhone kind of device? To me, it seems they could bring out a whole range of stuff – from audio players to video players and cameras to e-readers such as Kindle, and a whole lot of stuff. Does Hitachi plan to do these things?
We cannot comment on future Hitachi plans or products. However, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) is focused on providing advanced Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and
Enterprise-class Solid State Drives (SSDs) for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal
Storage.
Q. What plans does Hitachi have to make storage a bit sexier – say taking it wireless, something like Apple’s Time Capsule and such other ideas?
While we cannot comment on future products and offerings, our Branded Business goal is to deliver a blend of integrated personal and professional storage solutions and software products that help consumers, small businesses and AV professionals store, access and manage their growing collections of digital content.
We will not just offer storage-in-a-box with a one-size-fits all approach. We will continue to build unique
products that meet specific customer needs, and market them accordingly.
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