Hitachi Global Storage Revenue Rises

Hitachi Data Systems, which started shipping storage systems for midrange companies only in the fall of 2007, has produced a substantial revenue improvement in the worldwide external disk storage sector, according to a report issued June 6 by IT research company IDC.

HDS gained .6 percent in overall market share over 2007, earning an additional $69 million over the year-ago figure with $435 million this quarter, a 19.1 percent increase and the highest among the top six disk storage system sellers.

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HDS, best known for shipping high-end data center storage systems to large enterprises such as Boeing and Disney-ABC, launched its Windows-based Simple Modular Storage product line Oct. 15—its first system aimed squarely at the mass market of small and midsize businesses and remote office users. Apparently it has sold well.

Dell, with a 17.5 percent increase, and EMC, which improved by 14 percent and continues as the top-selling disk storage maker, were second and third in income improvement, respectively. Dell and EMC each also gained .6 percent in market share.

On the other hand, both IBM and Hewlett Packard lost ground. HP lost .7 percent on 4.4 percent growth, and IBM lost .9 percent on only 2.7 percent growth.

Still, the market leaders remain pretty much in lockstep, as they have been for more than three years: 1. EMC, with 20.8 percent of the market; 2. HP, with 12.4 percent; 3. IBM, with 11.5 percent; 4. Dell, with 9.3 percent; 5. NetApp, with 9 percent; and 6. Hitachi Data Systems, with 8.9 percent.

Overall, the disk storage market doesn't seem to be too affected by the cooling-off in the world's general economy. Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted a robust 10.8 percent year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2008 and totaling $4.9 billion, according to the IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker.

"It looks like customers are saying that even in these times of cautious spending, they really need to keep investing in devices that store business data," IDC analyst and research manager Brad Nisbet told eWEEK. "They pretty much have to."

In Q1, the total disk storage systems market grew to $6.7 billion in revenues, up 8.4 percent from the prior year's first quarter, Nisbet said. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reached 1,642 petabytes, growing a whopping 51.8 percent year over year.

"After a very healthy 2007, the disk storage systems market is carrying that momentum into 2008, with most product segments seeing solid growth in the first quarter," Nisbet said. "It's clear that while organizations may be feeling squeezed in their overall IT budgets, the investments being made to store growing volumes of critical business data adequately are increasing. We see a long road of positive drivers fueling the opportunities for disk storage systems in the form of increased retention requirements and long-term data protection goals."