back to article HDS freezes high-end storage hardware investment

According to IT Pro Nikkei, Hitachi is freezing further investment in its VSP high-end storage because it is a low-profit business and Hitachi wants to increase its operating margin. The report quotes Keiichi Shiotsuka of Hitachi, Ltd, the Executive Officer Senior Managing Systems & Services Business Vice President. He said …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmm...

    So, more investment in flash and software and the ubiquitous IoT... less investment in high-end hardware? That seems - almost oddly - completely logical, no? I bet it means less custom chip work and more of systems like the smaller VSPs...

    BTW, that statement just lead new hardware that "has yet to launch", no?

    Oh, and another day, another proclamation of the death of the high-end... we'll see... we'll see.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmm...

      oops... just *leaked*... not lead... darn fingers and keys...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Symmetrix?..

    I wonder if this is good news for Symmetrix? Currently this platform is its only viable competition. I realize the article said they aren't killing it off, but dropping investment in a product sounds like "being put out to pasture". Maybe I read it wrong.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Symmetrix?..

      VMAX has been trailing these guys for a while in terms of flash in the high-end, mainframe support, etc.. Suppose it depends on what HDS hasn't rolled out yet. Also, I don't suspect most of that $850M USD cost savings EMC touted in January is coming from XtremIO, now is it? ;-) EMC's good at wrapping the ordinary (VMAX All Flash? Really?) in fireworks and glitter, so TBD on impact I'd imagine.

    2. Big_JM

      Re: Symmetrix?..

      VMAX (Symmetrix) has been in stark decline for a long time. Numerous systems have passed it by. The idea that HDS is, or was, its only viable competitor either lacks context or is willfully ignorant.

      What we're seeing here is an industry trend over the last 3 years now. The monoliths--specifically EMC, HDS, & IBM--are going the way of the Dinosaur and each one is facing significant challenges with revenue generation.

      Customers are saying that "big iron" is either overkill, not flexible enough, or some combination of the two. Smaller, simpler, flexible, and more agile systems have broken through and customers have jumped on board. Obviously HPE has benefitted the most with 3PAR but we're not alone. While Pure, Nimble, and a few others might have ugly balance sheets they are growing revenue and have much more credible 'mindshare' than the monoliths do with Flash.

      1. Nuff Said

        Re: Symmetrix?..

        This is the HPE who sell a storage array called XP7 which is a re-badged product from ... erm, let me see ... Hitachi?

        Spin much?

  3. Howard Hanek
    Happy

    Puns Intended

    HDS - they're a pole apart from the competition. (PS the North Pole is cold but the SP is colder)

    HDS - they're so cool they make liquid nitrogen seem like boiling water

    HDS - just got the warehouse bill for all the unsold equipment and it exceeded their R&D budget?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    HDS Following EMC's Lead

    EMC has being going down this path for a while now as the VMAX sales continue to decline each quarter. I know one of their recent pushes has been all-flash VMAX3 Arrays but few takers so far, unlike the XtremIO line which is doing amazingly well.

    It will be interesting to see how this looks in 5 years. Were I to guess, the G1000, VMAX and DS8xxx lines will all be legacy and heading to EOL. I don't see a lot of customers going for these huge all-flash arrays when then smaller components offer a lot more flexibility.

    1. MityDK

      Re: HDS Following EMC's Lead

      Unless EMC can fix Xtremio's major code problems with scale out, VMAX 3 with their new code and all flash direction are not going anywhere.

      I wouldn't be surprised to see xtremio hit the shelf, and VMAX take it's place. You can't have enterprise all flash in a platform that keeps crashing and won't scale out as advertised--that's xtremio today. VMAX has been far more stable of course, but with the removal of enginuity for their new code, we shall see if it survives.

  5. dineshsingh2004

    High-end Storage Continues to be PRIORITY

    Disclaimer - HDS employee

    This story is far from truth. North pole and South pole. It's like saying, Microsoft is killing Windows, or Alphabet is killing Google Search !

    VSP G1000 continues to be the market leader in high-end segment, because of performance and reliability. Leading Gartner's MQ since time immemorial !

    So, if you can't beat or match, spread canard !

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmm...could this have anything to do with it?

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/15/datacore_drops_spc1_bombshell/

    Once upon a long time ago, Hitachi was an early investor in DataCore, and OEM'd the product long enough to get their own VSP into the market.

    Now that DataCore has blown Hitachi (and everyone else in the world) out of the water, maybe they are just seeing the SDS writing on the wall.

    If I were them, and I'd concluded there is no way to catch up (and continue to make the huge margins they need), I'd kill it off too.

    Seems everyone is coming to grips with the fact that monolithic Enterprise Class Hardware Defined Storage is going the way of the Mainframe. Hitachi is just being smart enough to stop throwing money into a Hardware-Defined black hole.

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