Storage Software Sales Keep Climbing, No Ceiling in Sight

Sales in the data storage industry, as has been the case for more than a decade, continue to travel “up and to the right” on all the market report charts, and with the continuing deluge of data pouring into storage devices, no change is expected anytime soon.
Following last week’s upbeat storage hardware report, industry analyst IDC reported Sept. 6 that the storage software sector experienced its seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth during the second quarter of 2011.
In its Storage Software QView, IDC placed the total storage software market value at $3.4 billion during the quarter, up 11.3 percent over the same period last year. IDC said the double-digit growth aligned with increased investments made within the server and disk storage hardware markets during the same quarter, an indication that storage software sales benefited from investments made within the infrastructure space.
Among the vendors, EMC, with second-quarter revenues of $827 million, led a handful of large software producers with about 25 percent of the market. Symantec, with 16 percent and revenues of $533 million, was second. IBM was third with 14 percent and $477 million in revenue.
NetApp was fourth with 9 percent and $298 million, and Hitachi (4.4 percent, $147 million) and Hewlett-Packard (4 percent, $131 million) were in a virtual tie for fifth, IDC said.
All suppliers covered within IDC’s Qview saw year-over-year increases in storage software sales, suggesting demand for storage software was far reaching and went well beyond simple product refresh cycles, IDC said.