Sun Microsystems, Hitachi, Ltd., and Hitachi Data Systems extend global relationship to deliver data center storage solutions.

Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW), Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Hitachi Data Systems have announced that they have extended the terms of their global distributor agreements and related collaborative agreements for an additional two years, 12 months before the existing agreement was due for renewal. The original agreement, signed in August 2001 and now extended through 2006, has enabled both companies to successfully deliver high-availability and high-performance end-to-end data center solutions.

"This partnership is a win for Sun, HDS and Sun customers," said Mark Canepa, executive vice president of Sun Network Storage. "We are able to solve critical customer problems such as data center consolidation and application availability with a best of breed product. At the same time, we are able to deliver to our customers a fully tested and integrated end-to-end IT solution with a single service contract for support."

"Hitachi is pleased to extend our partnership with Sun, which has allowed us to expand our customer base as well as assert our leadership in data center storage," said Dave Roberson, president and chief operating officer of Hitachi Data Systems. "This agreement provides proof that both companies are committed to driving forward the concept that collaboration is vital in an industry where customers require open, interoperable, high-performance storage solutions from trusted vendors."

Since the original agreement, Sun has supplied more than five petabytes and 90,000 drives of Sun StorEdge 9900 series systems, based on the Hitachi Freedom Storage Lightning 9900 V Series platform. Market share for these products has grown from zero to almost 10 percent in less than 18 months (IDC, March 2003).

"We decided to upgrade and consolidate our data storage environment into two Sun StorEdge 9980s in order to realize greater efficiencies," said Ken Karls, SAP Service Line Manager for Dow Corning. "Not only have we reduced the cost and complexity of our computing environment, but we have been very pleased by the seamless experience and continuous uptime during a migration that took place in only three weeks."

Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will extend their collaboration for hardware, software and services to seamlessly provide improved integration and ease of management in complex environments. Collaboration between the companies consists of marketing, sales support, services and joint customer support centers, in order to provide a better experience for customers in the form of management, interoperability and flexibility in the areas of business continuance and storage management. The extended agreement provides increased investment protection for customers as a result of the continued joint innovation.

"We have been very pleased with our Sun StorEdge 9900 system and selected Sun for its solutions approach to data center storage," Michael Bembenek, director of IT, Systems Engineering, Sybase, Inc. "The integration between Sun's storage servers, software and services allows us to realize a greater total cost of ownership savings from our IT investment."

"The Sun/Hitachi relationship has been a win for both companies, as well as Sun customers, who benefit from a world class data center offering," said Randy Kerns, partner, Evaluator Group. "In the end, Sun has gained competency and expertise in data center storage as a result of this partnership, and can offer customers this solution as part of its own portfolio and as part of the Sun end-to-end infrastructure."%