Miller says MVD is displacing Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP) at the high end of the market in Japan on price. The company partners with NewTek in Japan, which sells Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) servers running MVD's NAS software. "Users generally don't buy, but lease, NetApp machines in Japan, and when the end of the lease comes up they are looking for other alternatives," says Miller. "Quite a few are switching to MVD Powered NAS."
He estimates for the same cost as a year's lease for a standard NetApp filer, a company can purchase five NewTek machines running MVD NAS software. A large Japanese government agency looking to cut costs did just that and ditched its NetApp contract in favor of NewTek and MVD. Miller declined to provide pricing details, but it's an interesting niche and obviously one that has piqued Hitachi's interest.
Discussions have apparently been going on for some months around how the Japanese conglomerate can use MVD's software on its servers. "We are working with the server group to add PowerCockpit and they are also considering MVD Powered NAS," says Miller. We were unable to reach Hitachi officials in Japan by press time.
Miller says his company is also winning accounts that Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is missing with its Windows Server Appliance Kit (SAK), as MVD supports Unix and Linux, which Microsoft does not. Still, the Redmond-based software company has a footprint the size of a small country and is marching into the storage market at an ever-increasing pace. MVD's window of opportunity to compete with Microsoft could be shrinking (see Microsoft Gets NASty and Microsoft Grooms Windows for Storage).
That said, with Hitachi behind it MVD begins to look more threatening. Could the Japanese giant be preparing to enter the low-end NAS market in Japan? Maybe.
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