isham research
The IBM and Hitachi (almost joint) announcement on 6 June 2001 started some interesting discussions. It has obvious benefits for users, promising to provide them in the future with dual suppliers (and therefore a choice) no matter which of the to date unique features of either company's enterprise storage products they use.
It has benefits too for ISVs, who will find business cases for investment in storage software easier to make when they can develop to a single set of APIs and address both company's users. Effectively combining their market shares may bring their common API set above critical mass, an important factor in competing with EMC.
The other benefits to IBM and Hitachi are less clear. Patent cross-licensing agreements are common and those between [web item deleted]IBM and Hitachi some of the most comprehensive in the industry. Unifying their APIs removes one differentiator - a dangerous move along a road to competition merely on price. Hitachi in particular has been burned before in the 1980s and 1990s, when HDS, Comparex and Olivetti sold identical Hitachi equipment in Europe - trying to differentiate themselves solely on price and causing fierce erosion.
Both Hitachi and IBM do have some capacity to absorb such price erosion. Both are bottom-to-top manufacturers with early access to some of the impressive breakthroughs being made now.
EMC does not have this luxury, and has recently begun tightening its corporate belt. Both IBM and Hitachi are claiming recent market share increases whereas EMC, still using a relatively old architecture, has not. The implications are clear.