Movers and Shakers

Interview with Patrick Humm, CEO, Hie Electronics

During his over 25-year career, Mr. Humm held significant senior management positions with Texas Instruments. His experience includes the leadership of business startups, turnarounds, strategy and process development, acquisitions and divestitures. Mr. Humm led the joint venture relationships with international commercial partners for the development of silicon wafer fabrication facilities, product portfolios, new technology transitions, capital expansions, and the associated board of director governance. As program manager, he supervised three of the largest systems reengineering and capital expenditure projects in TI history.

What are some of the key differentiators in the solutions that HIE ELECTRONICS has to offer compared to its competitors?

Huge, readily searchable data storage, providing unlimited long term video/data storage and analysis is available now with the Hie Electronics TeraStack Solution.  Currently, potential customers don't get the work done as effectively or efficiently as they could with our system because they reduce their operational requirements to meet perceived cost, space and power limitations.

We are the technology of choice for application storage users who need long-term storage of large non-volatile files.  They need to move up from hard drives, magnetic tapes or data center concepts to a single powerful solution.  They need to know more about the TeraStack application integrated storage solution.  Compressed into a single, small footprint operating at one-tenth the cost, the TeraStack Solution is the only archival product to combine Blu-ray technology with patented middleware for searchable data storage up to and beyond 50 terabytes.  Our TeraStack Solution is a product that can be used across many industries and in conjunction with many existing larger scale data storage applications.

The reduced floor space and low power needs of the TeraStack Solution also enable integrators and their customers to vastly reduce costs from traditional systems-integrators have consistently told us that power and space issues are significant cost factors-improvements in these areas make them more competitive and profitable.  In fact, the TeraStack Solution improves return on investment as needs increase and optical disc technology improves-so there is a long-term cost benefit to our system.  The longer surveillance video, medical records or any other data needs to be archived, the better the cost advantage of the TeraStack Solution.

What do you view as the key challenges and opportunities in the video surveillance storage markets in the coming years?

Organizations are learning to live with the permanent data storage needs mandated by government entities mixed with their own corporate needs driven by much longer retention of data that formerly was discarded.  Data for applications like video surveillance and long-term medical records that used to be too costly to store is now affordable.

The value of the system grows over time by increased, searchable records for intelligence, tracking, research or evidence; in the absence of very large, searchable storage, these capabilities are severely limited.  As storage needs grow, the system capabilities can grow at a fraction of the original system cost, both by increasing modules of readily searchable data or over time based on improvement in optical storage media, potentially doubling storage capability every couple of years without buying a new system.

Briefly describe HIE ELECTRONICS' current revenue streams, in terms of products and services. What other products or services will you be adding to the mix in the near future, how will that change from the current focus?

We are currently pre-revenue but initial revenue streams will come from sales of TBYTe 50 models and sales of replacement TeraStack cartridges.  Different TBYTe models, the TBYTe 150, and a single stack TBYTe 6, will be coming soon as new revenue streams.  Our future will be increasing storage into petabytes with the improvement of optical storage media.

At the moment, customers often don't even look at their actual storage and search needs because they assume meeting their needs is cost prohibitive.  For some customers, the cost advantages are not immediately understood-it requires a case study applied to their particular situation or a plan to prove the advantages-we are anxious to show the customer exactly that.

Our primary, key opportunities early on are in the security, intelligence and medical communities.  Their needs can only be met through efficient, effective systems that can be stand-alone or integrated as a key component-either way the customer gets huge bang-for-the-buck.

What are the most significant industry trends in the video surveillance storage market? What role will HIE ELECTRONICS play in these trends?

In surveillance, the trend is increasing camera resolution, frame rates and image analysis capabilities.  These include the ability to search by specific detail such as motion and color, and more sophisticated video cameras, some with embedded software for seeking out potential or actual terrorists or criminals.  This trend will generate huge increases in data streams.  The industry is focused on the camera head and transmission of its petabytes across expensive IP networks into central storage.  Hie is poised to be the extended storage unit of choice to handle these huge streams of data in the central store and near edge, providing the platform to retain the data inexpensively for very long periods of time.

One of the most significant trends involves the increased precision of video cameras, requiring improved, searchable storage capabilities.  Video is not very effective at low resolution, and if you don't have the storage, you end up reducing the resolution of the camera or storing video data for fewer days-these actions severely limit the security or intelligence operator or analyst from identifying key information and taking action to predict a threat or catch the adversary in the act.

In medical data, basic similar technology trend drivers exist.  HIPPA record retention plus 3D diagnostic imaging produces multi-gigabyte datasets that may need to be securely kept for decades on very low cost non-volatile media.

How would you describe the competitive landscape at this point? How do you feel your products are fairing in the market? What are your customers telling you?

The market is chaotic and therefore ripe for a great solution like we have in our TeraStack Solution.  Competitors have married themselves to RAID based architectures; even moderate sized camera installations can require huge expenditures on hard drive storage.  NAS, SAN and NFS installations will have to have all of their HDDs replaced within 5 years.

We are currently completing multiple beta tests and our TeraStack Solution has been well received in multiple verticals.  The competitive landscape is one of great opportunity, as our system can interface with or replace the existing storage network architectures that are already in place.  We give a technology lift while meeting new extended data storage statues.

New applications will seek the Hie Electronics system because data migration as an annual requirement will be all but eliminated and cost significantly reduced.  The cost advantages of not needing massive data centers close to low power sources will be one of the most compelling points.  The energy passive permanence of the structured TeraStack Solution is a fundamental change in the ownership of data.  Customers are telling us that we are revolutionary.

What do you, as the CEO of the company, want to accomplish in the next 5 years? How would you define success in this position?

Hie Electronics will be a thriving tech company providing our innovative, affordable TeraStack and PetaStack storage into multiple industry verticals.  Success is creating value in this marketplace that effectively meets a significant global need for all customers, corporations and governments while doing it profitably and building up a highly attractive company.  We will either go public or be so attractive that we will be acquired.

What would you like your investors and partners to know about HIE ELECTRONICS?

We are going to maximize the value of their investment in our company.  We have our own money and families in the deal so we are committed to being successful.  In offering a Blu-ray based solution, Hie Electronics is positioning itself on the forefront of the fastest growing segments of enterprise data storage technology.