Hitachi's product-oriented messages, while necessary and important, will not suffice in helping users chart a course for the near-to-mid term. Hitachi and other vendors are staring at a major opportunity to articulate what the future of storage will look like and lay out a multi-year plan for customers to follow. Virtualized data centers, more efficient technology utilization , tiered storage and heterogeneous storage management are key underpinnings of this vision as is the accommodation for information asset and liability management.