It may, in fact, be a smokescreen to buy IBM and Hitachi more time for each to develop its own multivendor storage management initiative. IBM is now officially at least two years behind in delivering Storage Tank, its SAN-based file system, and has a virtualization engine in the works that's probably at least a year off. HDS only recently woke up, shook out the cobwebs, and realized it needs a comprehensive software strategy to remain competitive (see IBM Software Slides to 2003 and Can HDS's TrueNorth Take On EMC?).
Anyway, it was obviously the hard disk side of the house that drove the deal in the first place. The Hitachi-IBM HDD venture will be a multibillion-dollar player that should attain nice economies of scale in manufacturing and R&D. It will slug it out as the No. 3 provider in the HDD market behind Maxtor Corp. (NYSE: MXO) and Seagate Technology Inc.
The stuff about "next-generation storage networks" almost seems like it was thrown into the press release as an afterthought.
Imagine this scenario: IBM and Hitachi execs are gathered around a conference table toasting each other (with whatever it is they use on such occasions) after sealing the HDD deal. Then one of them slaps the table in a eureka! moment: Maybe they can get a little more mileage out of this. "Hey, we both already decided we're going to support SAN management standards anyway, since everybody hates EMC's story with WideSky. Let's say we're doing joint R&D!" High fives all around.
Industry standards and interoperable storage systems are good things, and customers should demand them. The fact that IBM and Hitachi are planning to work toward this goal together is praiseworthy. But trying to pump it up to sound bigger than it is... well, it's a bit pathetic.
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