Following our tentative suggestion that Hitachi Ltd may choose to withdraw from the mainframe business around 1995, both Comparex Informationssysteme GmbH and Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Ltd’s distributors, have expressed surprise: Hitachi Data says that in the year to March 1991, between 60% and 70% of Hitachi’s research and development budget was devoted to Information Systems technology; 47% of Hitachi’s operating profit is derived from computing, mainly mainframes and although desktop systems contribute, the figure does not include consumer goods; in the year to March 1992, Hitachi Data claims to have seen year-on-year revenue growth of 14%, 60% over a three-year period; both companies say it is highly unlikely, to the point of verging on the impossible, that Hitachi Ltd will abandon manufacture of mainframe processors; we seem to remember that the people running the company’s European subsidiaries were amazed when Singer Co announced that it was pulling out of the computer business because of its problems in its home market way back in 1976; ICL Plc eventually bought most of the unit.
