Gung ho on Government

l The

18 months that have elapsed since 9.11 have seen increased awareness about

business continuity and disaster management. How has this affected your storage

business?



9.11 only reinforced the need for robust storage architecture. IT departments
had been aware of these issues, but suddenly, the importance of storage hit CEOs

and heads of organizations in India. In the grip of the slowdown, the US economy

went into a further budget squeeze after 9.11 and business slowed. But in India,

the number of SAN installations doubled in the last 12 months. But this would

have happened even without 9.11. The incident only made Indian CEOs wary of

eventualities. Not surprisingly, India is among the top three companies Hitachi

is focussing on–the other two being China and Brazil.

l Which

are the key verticals you are targeting in India?



Telecom, banking and financial services, software development houses, and the
government are the key verticals that we focus on. These sectors have immense

storage needs and need specialized services. In fact, we expect the government

sector to contribute 20-25% of overall revenues from India in the next fiscal.

The first 18 months of our India operations drew revenues worth $10 million. We

are targeting another $10 million in the second half of the current fiscal.

l What

are the key requirements for a strong and efficient storage system?



Scalability, interoperability, performance, manageability, and reliability are
the essential features of a storage system. As the data in the organization

grows, the system should be able to scale from a single terabyte to hundreds of

terabytes, the speed of accessing the data should not deteriorate and it should

be able to operate with diverse devices, operating systems, servers and

applications.

l What

is the market size for storage systems in India?



India has the potential to generate annual business worth nearly $ 100 million.
We are still tapping the top of the pyramid targeting the top 500 organizations.

We need to be prepared to move lower down the chain. That’s when the channel

business will bloom.

l What

has been your investment in the Indian market?



HDS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. All investment decisions are
taken by the parent company. HDS is a $ 2 billion company in the $80-billion

group. Hitachi plans to capture 20% of the SME and 50% of the high-end market in

the next 12 months. We have invested about $1 million in India till now.

l Who

are your partners in the Indian market?



We have a global relationship with Sun, and that works very well in India too.
Apara and Lanbit are the only two local partners we have. We also do some

business with Tata Infotech.

Manjiri Kalghatgi