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Abstract:
Pantelis Alexopoulos to Oversee Hard Drive Read/Write Head Technology

Hitachi Hires Hard Drive Veteran to Lead Key Technology Business Group

San Jose, CA | Posted on June 20th, 2007

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi) today announced the appointment of Pantelis Alexopoulos to the position of vice president and general manager, Head Business Group. Alexopoulos is a 26-year veteran of the hard disk drive industry, whose career has spanned numerous major hard drive vendors and component suppliers in the industry. He will be based at Hitachi's Cottle Road site in South San Jose.

In leading Hitachi's Head Business Group, Alexopoulos will have responsibility for revenue performance, profit and loss, volume growth and cost management for one of five major business groups. The head -- which performs the important task of reading and recording data -- is one of the two key components of the hard drive (the other is the media upon which data is stored). Head technology requires deep understanding and application of nanotechnology, magnetics and metrology, which enable data recording with nanometer precision.

"We are very pleased to add to our executive team the deep-seated experience that Pantelis has accumulated over the past several decades in the hard drive industry," said Robert Holleran, chief operating officer, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "We are confident that Pantelis' direction will extend Hitachi's head technology leadership, which has brought us the quarter-terabyte 2.5-inch drive and terabyte 3.5-inch drive."

Alexopoulos has spent his entire professional career in the hard drive industry, beginning with a thorough technical foundation established within IBM's hard drive business. This was followed by nearly a decade at Seagate and Maxtor.

For the past year, Alexopoulos has served as chairman and chief executive officer for TDK Fujitsu Philippines Corporation, a Philippines-based joint venture between TDK and Fujitsu in the head-gimbal-assemby sector.

During his eight-year tenure at Maxtor, Alexopoulos served as chief technology officer and executive vice president, responsible for Corporate Development, Engineering and Advanced Technology. Prior to that, he was executive director of Advanced Concepts at Seagate.

Alexopoulos began his career at IBM's Almaden Research Center, where he spent 14 years in various managerial and technical positions.

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About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is a storage technology leader, founded in 2003 through the combination of Hitachi’s and IBM’s hard disk drive businesses. Hitachi GST enables users to fully engage in the digital lifestyle by providing high-value hard disk storage in formats suitable for the office, on the road and in the home.

With its legacy in hard drive invention, Hitachi GST led the industry in celebrating the storage technology’s golden anniversary in 2006. The hard drive has had a profound effect on the computing and consumer electronics industries after five decades of innovation. That heritage lives on at Hitachi GST today through products that define the standard for hard drive miniaturization, capacity, performance and reliability.

With approximately 33,000 employees worldwide, Hitachi GST offers a comprehensive range of hard drive products for desktop computers, high-performance servers, notebooks and consumer devices. For more information, please visit the company’s Web site at http://www.hitachigst.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 384,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2006 (ended March 31, 2007) consolidated revenues totaled 10,247 billion yen ($86.8 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services.

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Contacts:
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
Kim Nguyen
408-717-7589

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