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HDS's Hard-Wired Vision: Page 2 of 5

HDS has "collaborated" with CommVault Systems Inc. and InterSAN Inc., with reseller agreements announced last fall (see HDS Resells InterSAN, CommVault). It announced a "collaboration" with Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) earlier this year (see Hitachi Gets Tight With Oracle). All the while, HDS has delivered just one new piece of software it developed itself, HiCommand Tuning Manager, a proprietary utility that is supposed to optimize databases running on HDS arrays. Then this April, it finally hired someone – Jack Domme, who was decamping from the quickly dying StorageNetworks – to head up its software division (see HDS Hires VP of Software).

All told, it's not a very impressive list of milestones. Another telling detail is that HDS has not articulated any clear strategy relating to storage virtualization services, whereas EMC, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) each have. My overall sense of HDS's software strategy is this: When you're makin' bacon selling spindles, why worry about tomorrow?

By contrast, EMC has seen the future – and a very big part of it is software. Two years ago, Hopkinton reorganized to address both storage systems and open software. This year, it acquired data backup and archive specialist Legato Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: LGTO). EMC has set explicit goals, too: It plans to generate 30 percent of its total revenues from software by the end of 2004 (see EMC Salivates Over Software).

Granted, EMC hasn't seen dramatic success in the open software market yet. And there are risks with any deal the size of the Legato acquisition (see EMC's Soft Spot?). But EMC has positioned itself well here, whereas HDS has simply paid it lip service.

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