Hitachi sees growth in India

Hitachi Data Systems expects to maintain strong double digit growth in the Indian market for the current year, helped by increase in business from new customers, states Sify.

The storage solutions provider, which had seen a 35% year-on-year growth in the Indian market in 2008, says it does not expect a decline, but agreed there would be some form of a slowdown. India is the fastest growing, and a strategic market for Hitachi.

Last year, the company added 160 customers in India and the market share grew about 3%. Some of the increase was at the expense of Hitachi's competitors such as IBM and EMC, he added. The total number of customers in India is about 300.

Datalink reported record revenue and strong earnings growth for all of 2008, but tighter customer spending, especially on new products, caused its sales and earnings to drop during the fourth quarter compared to last year, says Channel Web.

Datalink president and CEO Charlie Westling says the market conditions in the last few weeks have deteriorated, and the company is seeing uncertainty and caution in customer purchases. Customers are delaying projects unless there is a clear, immediate ROI or there is an urgent need, he adds.

The storage specialist reported revenue of $48.2 million (R482.9 million) for the fourth quarter of 2008, which ended 31 December. That represented a drop of 5% compared to the same quarter last year.

Spare Backup has signed a marketing agreement with Cydcor, according to PR News Wire.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cydcor will offer the online backup applications providers' business data storage solutions to its network of business clients. Both companies will share in the revenue derived from sales on a monthly or annual subscription basis.

Cydcor is a market leader in outsourced direct sales, with over 3 000 direct sales professionals servicing hundreds of thousands of business clients in North America. Cydcor sales professionals made over 30 million direct in-person sales calls in 2008.