Storage Software Market Continues Its Growth, IDC Reports

The worldwide storage software market grew in double digits again—10.2 percent year over year to $2.4 billion in the first quarter of 2006—marking 10 consecutive quarters of double-digit year-over-year growth, IDCs Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker reported June 12.

In Q1 of 2006, the storage replication market demonstrated a 15.2 percent year-over-year growth.

In addition, the smaller but fast-growing archive and HSM (hierarchical storage management) market posted a 30.2 percent year-over-year growth, IDC said.

Storage software continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments in the tech market.

Worldwide sales for the storage software market have grown by double digits over the past five years and will nearly double by 2011—from $7.88 billion in 2004 to $13.67 billion in 2009, IDC said.

EMC led the overall market this quarter with 25.4 percent revenue share in the first quarter of 2006.

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Symantec took the second position with 20.1 percent revenue share, while IBM was third with 12.6 percent revenue share.

IBM grew by 41 percent in the past year and was the only vendor among the top three to increase its revenue share (9.8 percent to 12.6 percent).

EMC dropped in market share to 25.4 percent from 29.2 percent a year ago. Symantec fell slightly, from 21.1 percent to 20.1 percent in the last year.

Network Appliance finished fourth with 7.6 percent revenue share. Computer Associates and HP rounded out the top five in a statistical tie with 5.5 percent and 5.4 percent revenue share, respectively.

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Three out of the top five vendors (IBM, Computer Associates and Network Appliance) posted robust results with more than 30 percent year-over-year revenue growth each.

"The storage software market has maintained a steady pace of growth driven by increased attention to data protection and business continuance planning," said Rhoda Phillips, research manager for IDC storage software.

"Businesses are concerned about their expanding information storage requirements and will continue to make investments to meet these needs."

IDC has updated its storage software taxonomy to reflect changes in the market over the last several years.

For 2006, the storage software taxonomy includes eight functional markets: data protection and recovery, archive and hierarchical storage management (including e-mail archiving), storage replication, storage management, storage device management, storage infrastructure, file system and "other."

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