Hitachi Data Systems Ltd, just squeezing into the tail-end of the UK reporting period, has filed its results for the year ending March 31 1991. The Hitachi mainframe and disk distributor, 80%-owned by Hitachi Ltd, reported a pre-tax loss of UKP2.1m, its third succcessive loss, although an improvement on last year’s UKP3.1m loss. Revenue increased by 33% to UKP60.0m, up from UKP45.1m last time, and the cost of sales, UKP55.8m left a gross profit of UKP4.2m. Peter Waller, UK managing director, says that 16% of revenue comes from services, and the rest is split fairly evenly between disks and mainframes. Despite the bottom line figure, Waller says that 1991 was a good year generally, with the top-end G8 mainframes shipping in volume and the 3390 disk business doubling over two years. Most companies reporting three successive years of losses would be answerable to irate shareholders. However, Hitachi Data is in the fortunate position of having Hitachi Ltd as a parent, and it undertook not to take money out of the European operation for three years. Nonetheless, Waller says that it will expect to see improvements in the bottom line figure from here on. He attributes the loss, which amounts an accumulated deficit of UKP8.2m, to heavy investments, the cost of new headquarters, recession and increasingly vicious discounting on the part of IBM and the other IBMulators. Waller claims that Hitachi Data has spent its first three years consolidating operations and establishing itself as a high-quality supplier with growing market share. He says the next three years should see it expand its product range and capitalise on its customer base. Hitachi Ltd has been working with Hewlett-Packard Co on a number of projects using Hewlett’s RISC technology, and Hitachi Data is keen to distribute some of the fruits of that collaboration. Waller acknowledges that the mainframe world has been shaken by IBM’s recent pronouncements, but he believes that to talk of the death of the mainframe is a nonsense. Apart from the existing customer base which is still demanding greater processing power, and will continue to do so through the next generation of 390s, the so-called alternatives of distributed systems and Unix have proved more expensive than anticipated. The dinosaur may be ailing, but it’s far from dead.
