Pillar chases Sun Partners with HDS replacement

Storage vendor Pillar Data Systems is approaching Sun Microsystems resellers with a replacement for the OEM Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) storage arrays that have been ditched by Sun following the Oracle takeover.

Oracle/Sun announced that it will no longer be offering HDS’ storage as of the end of the month which according to Chris Jones, VP EMEA for Pillar has led to the firm “to approach Sun partners, quite a lot of the Sun partners in fact.

“The acquisition and the end of HDS agreement puts us in a great place,” he adds. “It’s not like they [partners] woke up one day and said we have to change vendors. We are not just being opportunistic; we offer a better long term prospect.”

Pillar, which is majority owned by Larry Ellison’s VC firm Tako Ventures, has built a number of Oracle-aware software features into its hybrid SAN / NAS storage architecture.

Having Oracle’s co-founder and CEO as primary beneficiary of Pillar’s success makes the likelihood for close co-operation between the storage vendor and the enterprise software giant increasingly likely.

Pillar has also announced a new channel certification tier that will allow partners to take over the lucrative maintenance contracts that are normally retained by storage vendors. Pillar will handle spares stocking and logistics with partners providing full updates, service and support.

Pillar is planning to announce several new Sun partners that are joining its existing 12-strong UK channel programme within the next few months.