Strong Growth for Data Protection Market

By Greg McNevin

December 11, 2007: According to the analysts at IDC, Q3 of 2007 has seen strong growth in demand for archiving and data protection and recovery software.

The firm’s quarterly storage software tracker, the worldwide storage software market underwent its 16th consecutive quarter of year-on-year growth, with revenues of US$2.8 (AU$3.16) billion - a 9.8 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

The archiving market grew by 13.6 percent year-on-year, driven by e-discovery, regulatory compliance, and overall storage optimisation needs according to the firm.

Data protection and recovery, while down from Q2, had strong year-over-year growth of 13.1 percent, perpetuated by five out of the top six vendors having double-digit growth compared to Q3 2006.

The firm found EMC to be top dog overall with a 25.6 percent share of revenue, with Symantec taking out second place with 17.0 percent. IBM was third with 12.4 percent and Network Appliance fourth with 10.9 percent. CA and HP once again rounded out the top five in a statistical tie of 4.3 percent revenue share.

“Overall market growth was driven by strong performance in both the archiving and data protection and recovery markets,” said Michael Margossian, a research analyst for IDC’s Storage Software division. “Customer demand for storage replication seems to be cooling off, while the need for archiving appears to be picking up.”

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