IBM, HP, EMC Go 1-2-3 in World Storage Services Market, Gartner Reports

IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and EMC went 1-2-3 in 2005 as the most successful individual companies in worldwide storage services market share, according to a report released July 5 by Gartner Dataquest analyst Adam W. Couture to clients and made public July 17.

Big Blue, EMC, and Sun Microsystems ranked 1-2-3 in the regional "Americas" ranking, with HP fourth.

IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., reported $5.175 billion in worldwide storage services revenue in 2005 for a 21.1 percent market share, followed by HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., with $1.68 billion (6.8 percent), and EMC, of Hopkinton, Mass., with $1.55 billion (6.4 percent).

Gartner Dataquest, in Framingham, Mass., defines storage services as hardware maintenance and support services, software maintenance and support services, and storage consulting services. It does not include revenue associated with product-license updates and upgrades.

However, the report does include entitlements to maintenance in the planning of research agendas and publications for software support services, Gartner said.

By far the largest worldwide market share—52.6 percent—belongs to the "others" category, Gartner said.

This takes into account storage service revenue generated by smaller storage hardware and software vendors, outsourcers, managed-hosting providers, MSPs (management service providers), consulting companies, systems and network integrators, distributors, resellers, and third-party hardware and software support providers.

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The 2005 worldwide top 10, according to Gartner:

1. IBM, $5.175 billion (21.1 percent)

2. HP, $1.68 billion (6.8 percent)

3. EMC, $1.55 billion (6.4 percent)

4. Sun StorageTek, $1.4 billion (5.7 percent)

5. Dell, $622 million (2.3 percent)

6. Unisys, $531 million (2.0 percent)

7. HDS, $431 million (1.8 percent)

8. Symantec, $424 million (1.7 percent)

9. NetApp, $226 million (1.0 percent)

10. McData, $143 million (0.6 percent)

The "Americas" regional top 10, as charted by Gartner:

1. IBM, $2.03 billion

2. EMC, $948 million

3. Sun StorageTek, $762 million

4. HP, $599 million

5. Dell, $379 million

6. Symantec, $267 million

7. Unisys, $264 million

8. HDS, $211 million

9. NetApp, $131 million

10. McData, $97 million

Storage services in general are becoming more important to the IT industry as a revenue generator and as a way of maintaining account control for hardware vendors, according to the report.

Click here to read more about the disk storage market.

IBM was first across the board, including Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA), with $1.8 billion in sales, and in Asia/Pacific/Japan, with $1.3 billion.

HP placed second in both EMEA ($769 million) and in Asia/Pacific/Japan ($313 million). Sun was third in EMEA ($480 million) and Asia/Pacific/Japan ($158 million).

Sun Microsystems, of Santa Clara, Calif., moved into the top four due to the purchase of Denver, Colo.-based StorageTek in February 2005 for $4.1 billion. Virtually all of its market share is due to that acquisition.

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