Hitachi Sharpens Focus With New Blade Servers - Page 2

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In search of new markets

He suspects Hitachi will take the same tactic as Fujitsu, which is usually fifth in the IDC and Gartner server sales lists, and target Japanese firms with a presence in the U.S., like the car makers and banks. Beyond that, it's not clear. "They are likely to make some headway but they are never going to be a dominant player," said Eastwood.

It's not that the market has no interest in Hitachi, Eastwood explained, he said the problem is customers tend to stick with a vendor. As companies replace their arrays of low-utilization 32-bit servers with blades and engage in server consolidation strategies, they will likely stay with their vendor of choice.

"Bigger accounts will have a bake sale and look at what the competition is offering, but they are not going to throw their entrenched supplier out if they are happy with what they are getting," he said.

The U.S. market is, in fact, pretty solid. Dell is the only other player that's been able to make a run and build some momentum in the U.S. in the last 10 years. HP and IBM have decades of presence, Sun made a run in the 1990s, and Dell made its presence felt this decade with x86 servers.

Still, Eastwood liked the Hitachi offering. "Their play is strong around the ability to mix and match Itanium and x86, and they have their own virtualization platform. So they have a nice story around Linux and Windows and the ability to consolidate," he said.