Will it be big, stand-alone (mostly) boxes by EMC, pure networking schemes like Network Appliance or hybrids from the new Hitachi Data Systems and Sun alliance?

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Oracle now has 25 live customers on Fusion HCM, more than 125 licensed customers, and some huge wins such as UBS, Elizabeth Arden, Brocade, Hitachi Data Systems, Shutterfly, and others.

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An approach that Hitachi Data Systems also believes in.

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It competes with IBM, EMC, NetApp, Hewlett-Packard and Hitachi Data Systems in the storage hardware market by selling products like flash drives, magneto-optical drives, magnetic tape drives and compact drives that are used for backing up data on servers.

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Its high prices, generally 50% premium to the market, drove customers into the arms of competitors like Hitachi Data Systems, a unit of Hitachi Ltd. (nyse: HIT - news - people ), which Tucci concedes had better performing products.

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