Deduplication Rocks but will it be a curse to HDS or Falconstor?

I am not going to talk about data deduplication because everyone knows that data deduplication is hot technology. But I would like to share a lighter moment about Hitachi Data System's engagement with data deduplication partners.

HDS is probably the only one of the big boys (The group of EMC, NetApp, IBM, HP, Dell and Sun) that seems to be doing rings with data deduplication but not getting serious about it. It seems weird but they appear to curse (or a boon) any data deduplication partners.

First it was Diligent and Hu Yoshida of HDS spoke about the partnership. Then Diligent was purchased by IBM in 2008.

Shortly before the war between EMC and NetApp to get Data Domain, HDS had a brief partnership agreement with them. After Data Domain fell into the clutches of EMC, HDS went shopping again. The next one was Ocarina Networks, a content aware data deduplication technology and one that we resell in this region. And we all know now that Dell is going to acquire Ocarina Networks. So that's probably not going to work out for HDS.

The latest one is a partnership with Falconstor. Though this is a limited procurement agreement with the HDS AMS boxes, the Falconstor FDS (File-level Deduplication Interface) is part of the deal. Are we going to see another acquisition news that could leave HDS with several eggs on its face? Let's hope this is not a curse ;-)

Only time will tell but HDS got to make up its mind. For God's sake, just go and purchase whoever that's left and that include Permabit, Exagrid, Falconstor, Sepaton. Anyone else?