After EMC's recent launch of a virtual provisioning offering, Hitachi sent out a press release stating they were pleased to see EMC once again following in their footsteps, claiming to be the first tier one storage vendor to support thin provisioning, with its USP V system introduced in May 2007, Hitachi has since extended its thin provisioning service to support heterogeneous virtualised environments.

Simon Elisha, Head Solutions Architect for Hitachi Data Systems, described EMC as “playing catch up”, and believes Hitachi is leading the way with its thin provisioning and power saving technologies.

“EMC are really behind the eight ball,” he stated. “In comparison, Hitachi is an innovator in this industry, rather than an integrator, and that is the value we bring to the market.”EMC has also announced support for flash-based technology.

Elisha stated that from Hitachi's point of view, not enough is known about the technology to make it reliable. “The reliability of flash drives is still not known, and there doesn't appear to be a lot of benefit to the money being spent.

Clive Gold, Marketing Director, IP Solutions, for EMC, responded by stating it was “a shame” that Hitachi had taken this approach to the announcements. “We have always respected them for being engineers,” said Gold.

“This is a typical response from someone who is behind in the industry and trying to slow the market down.” In regards to Hitachi's comments on EMC's support for flash-based technology, Gold believes it will not affect the uptake.

“Any customer looking at this technology will scratch below that,” he explained. “We've worked long and hard on this and have been trusted in this industry for 20 years; there is no way we would put our customers at risk.”