Hitachi reveals What’s NEXT following launch of Vantara business unit

“Our job in this room is to make what’s next happen now,” said Asim Zaheer, CMO of Hitachi Vantara during his keynote.

Firstly, Hitachi is clearly taking a partnership-heavy approach when it comes to innovation and the development of advanced technologies.

As Zaheer pointed out: “Most people believe innovation is a function of code, software, applied with data and therefore you can achieve some innovations in different areas and use-cases. However, I would submit, you need people to do that as well.”

This played into Hitachi announcing a new partnership between Vantara and telco BT to develop both industrial and enterprise IoT solutions.

The partnership will aim to combine BT’s global network infrastructure, cloud capabilities and cyber security expertise with Vantara’s data expertise and its Lumada IoT platform to create enterprise-ready IoT solutions.

“We see the creation of strategic partnerships with leaders and market makers like BT as a critical underpinning to Hitachi’s IoT strategy as we move our company and business into the next phase of its evolution,” said Ryuichi Otsuki, CEO of Hitachi Vantara.

IoT strategy

Hitachi clearly sees a lot of potential in the burgeoning IoT market through Vantara and its Lumada IoT platform. “This IoT revolution has the potential to spawn many new businesses,” Zaheer said.

For example, Jinesh Varia, senior director of product management at Hitachi Vantara said: “We need to imagine the software-defined factory, the world of manufacturing is going to be disrupted by the software-defined factory and it’s going to start with these smart assets.”

“If you think about it, IoT is really a continuation of a digital revolution. We’re moving from a PC on every desk and a PC in every home, to a PC in every pocket now to a computer in every single machine,” added Rogers.

Smart data centre

Then there is Hitachi’s approach to innovating the data centre, identifying that it will no longer remain built within the traditional four walls of an enterprise.

Through Vantara, Hitachi can deliver the smart data centre as a solution, applying sensors and analytics to help customers get more out of their assets. The new solution has been designed to deliver performance, asset and capacity management, IT optimisation and data centre IoT sensor management to new and old customers.

“Data centres are becoming very mature, it’s getting harder and harder to take advantage of the data centre with IT investments and that’s exactly why we need to begin to stretch into these new operations,” said Rich Rogers, SVP of product and engineering at Hitachi Lumada.

The smart data centre is available now through the company’s early customer adoption program.