Hitachi Data Systems and Archivas Forge Global Partnership to Create Solutions for a New “Active Archive” Market Space

Teams with Leader in Content Archiving Solutions to Meet Customers’ Needs for Long-Term Preservation, Simplified Management, and Rapid Retrieval of Structured and Unstructured Data

SANTA CLARA, CA and WALTHAM, MA—February 27, 2006—Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, the leading provider of Application Optimized Storage™ solutions and a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) and Archivas, Inc., the leading provider of fixed content archiving solutions, today announced plans to deliver solutions that will define a new “active archive” market space with a worldwide product development and distribution agreement. The partnership will combine the global market reach and industry leading storage solutions from Hitachi Data Systems with open standards-based archiving software technology from Archivas. The two companies will work together to address customer needs for the long-term preservation, simplified management, and rapid retrieval of structured and unstructured data.

As opposed to burdening customers by introducing yet another island of storage for content archives and yet another set of software tools and management interfaces, the two companies will work together to develop a massively scalable active archive solution within a common management framework that enables customers to take advantage of the unique and established storage virtualization technologies already available from Hitachi.

“Vendors who delivered the first generation products in the content archive market have clearly not considered the serious management and cost implications that result from multiple isolated islands of storage dedicated to different applications, or thought strategically about how to scale to handle the massive amount of data customers are accumulating,” said Jack Domme, senior vice president, Global Solutions Strategy and Development, Hitachi Data Systems. “Hitachi Data Systems and Archivas, on the other hand, have carefully thought about the direction our customers and their critical applications, availability, and performance requirements are going, and designed an active archive offering that addresses those next generation requirements.”

“The classic information lifecycle management (ILM) view is that the value of data and the requirement for rapid access to data decline over time,” said John McArthur, group vice president and general manager, Information Infrastructure and Enabling Technologies, IDC. "That model falls apart, however, when someone has to produce 500,000 records out of ten million records for legal discovery, or respond to an audit request, or support an online customer service application with prior-year statements. These aren’t static archives, they’re active. Solutions that address not only the archive requirement, but also the management and active retrieval requirements provide an approach that is better suited to address real-world archiving requirements.”

“With our open standards-based approach and scalable architecture, Archivas provides an excellent complement to the capabilities of the Hitachi storage and management philosophy,” said Gary Voight, CEO, Archivas. “We are excited to join forces with Hitachi Data Systems in offering a clear choice for customers with a ground-breaking active archive solution.”

According to leading industry analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), more than 50 percent of all corporate data involves “fixed content,” such as documents, images, email and other data. This data, which is experiencing up to 90 percent annual growth in volume, must be readily available when needed. In addition, ESG has found more than 15,000 laws and regulations in the US alone drafted by federal and state legislative bodies that pertain to the proper treatment of information. These regulations address the process by which records must be created, stored, accessed, maintained, and retained over increasingly long periods of time, in some cases much longer than the life of a person.

“ESG has found that the active archive arena is one of the fastest growing markets in disk storage,” said Tony Asaro, senior analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “The main drivers for this are meeting regulatory compliance mandates, litigation protection and to improve IT efficiencies. What Archivas brings to the table is best-in-class active archive technology and what Hitachi Data Systems provides is world-class storage systems and software, support, services and a company that can support customers of any size or geography. This market is just emerging and Hitachi Data Systems is well-positioned to take a leadership position.”

Hitachi Data Systems’ Application Optimized Storage strategy enables organizations to match application requirements to storage attributes and provide application-centric management capabilities built on advanced software, industry-leading Hitachi storage systems, and a portfolio of services. Hitachi Data Systems is continuing to deliver on this strategy by adding a content services layer to this framework. Hitachi Data Systems will be announcing an active archive solution in CY Q2 2006 that will address the growing demand for solutions that effectively preserve content over time.

About Archivas

Based in Waltham, MA, Archivas, Inc. software lets customers store, protect and manage fixed-content data in the most open and operationally efficient online environment available on the market today, in order to meet both internal governance, as well as external compliance regulations. The Archivas Cluster (ArC) simultaneously addresses the need for immediate access to archive data while lowering the total cost of ownership. For additional information, please visit the company website at http://www.archivas.com, email info@archivas.com or telephone 781-890-8353.
About Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems leverages global R&D resources to develop storage solutions built on industry-leading technology with the performance, availability and scalability to maximize customers’ ROI and minimize their risk. By focusing on the customer’s perspective as we apply the best hardware, software, and services from Hitachi and our partners, we uniquely satisfy our customers’ business needs.

With approximately 2,900 employees, Hitachi Data Systems conducts business through direct and indirect channels in the public, government and private sectors in over 170 countries and regions. Its customers include more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, please visit our Web site at http://www.hds.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 347,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2004 (ended March 31, 2005) consolidated sales totaled 9,027.0 billion yen ($84.4 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.

© 2006, Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. Application Optimized Storage is a trademark of Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. All other trade names, trademarks, and service marks used herein are the rightful property of their respective owners.

Contact Information

Mary Ann Gallo

Press Contact

Hitachi Data Systems

Contact via E-mail