Now that Oracle has shelled out $7 billion for a hardware company, it stands to reason it will begin using that vast collection of hardware products. Sun doesn’t just have servers, it has switches, storage, tape backup and all kinds of arrays.
As such, Oracle is reevaluating its hardware alliances and will undoubtedly end a few of those relationships. Hitachi Data Systems is the first company to get a Dear John letter. Enterprise Storage Forum has more information.
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) will stop selling high-end data storage arrays from Hitachi Data Systems at the end of the month, according to a notice from HDS to its channel partners.
The announcement ends a nine-year partnership between HDS and Sun Microsystems, which was acquired by Oracle in January.
Oracle said in late January that it is focused on the Sun 7000 Open Storage systems and the ZFS file system, along with Sun’s tape storage business, leaving unanswered questions about some Sun partnerships and products.
Analyst Brian Marshall of Broadpoint AmTech wrote in a research note today that he thinks Oracle may need to find a high-end replacement for Hitachi’s USP-V systems — and he cited EMC (NYSE: EMC) and 3Par (NYSE: PAR) as possible partners.
