Hitachi's new channel focus

Kelly said he will concentrate on nurturing and developing Hitachi’s existing relationships, rather than expanding its channel partners.

“We’re really looking at how to get the most out of those existing partners in terms of building their skills and the support that those partners need to execute more. So increasing their yield and helping them every step of the way to achieve our joint plan,” he said.

Despite this inward-focus, Kelly went on to add that over the next few months Hitachi will make announcements about expanding its stable of distribution partners for its new entry-level Simple Modular Storage (SMS) range of products.

“We’ve launched a low-end storage product, the SMS family, and we’ll see over the next thirteen months, a move into a distribution of that product family and new partners to take us into the small and mid-market business space,” he said.

Kelly sees hardware feature-function selling as growth area for Hitachi. Virtualisation will also continue as a large driver, as will storage economics and the emergence of new Green data centre technologies. Kelly added that the company will continue its focus on the financial services and telecommunications industries, but will be seeking to expand its relationship with independent software vendors to enable the company to reach into other industries.

“I would probably see us increasing our focus around independent software vendors and aligning our products more with their solutions as well as other verticals, utilities, healthcare and such,” he said.