HP has corralled a new storage chief in the form of David Roberson.

Roberson comes to HP from Hitachi Data Systems, where he worked for a whopping 26 years - most recently as CEO. He'll take on the SVP and GM titles as head of HP's storage business. Former storage guardian Bob Schultz will continue on has SVP and GM of HP's newish Enterprise Server and Storage Software group.

Roberson's departure comes as a surprise, since he was a company man at Hitachi and only earned the CEO slot in March 2006.

The hire is, however, fitting in that Roberson will now work at the same organization as Shane Robison – HP's CTO. Both executives are in desperate need of extra consonants in their last names. Perhaps HP's Labs group can get to work on that.

Roberson takes over HP's disks on May 30.

For its part, HDS has tapped Minoru Kosuge as CEO. Kosuge was COO at Hitachi earlier today.

HP and Hitachi partner and compete in the storage game. HP resells Hitachi's high-end storage systems and fights everywhere else. ®