IBM Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., which occupy the second and third place in the storage market, agree to strategic storage alliance aimed at ousting EMC Corp. from the leading positions in the field of storage networks, systems and solutions. The strategic alliance is valid only in the field of data storage systems, and in other fields the companies will remain independent and will continue competing with one another.

This alliance will turn really interesting for the desktop PC market. According to the agreement between the two companies, Hitachi will be controlling IBM’s unprofitable HDD business. Upon completion of negotiations, Hitachi is expected to hold 70 percent of the joint venture and make a payment to IBM for its HDD assets. The new venture will receive 6000 employees from Hitachi and 18000 – from IBM.

The companies’ officials claim that the opening of the joint venture is nearly over, but the details about the official announcement of the new company and the amount of transaction haven’t been reported yet. All we know is that the capitalization of IBM HDD production has been evaluated around 3-3.8 billion US dollars, and that of Hitachi – around 750 million US dollars. No wonder that IBM decided to sell its HDD business, as its unprofitableness spoilt the entire financial picture. The analysts have predicted something of the kind, as you remember. The news about the mergence has been taken by the market with cautious optimism. Hitachi’s stocks grew up by 2.16% in the Tokyo stock-market, and IBM’s stocks grew up by 1% in New-York.