Storage to Suffer Less Budget Cuts

By Greg McNevin

February 12, 2009: IDC has released the results of a new European storage survey claiming it illustrates a telling market shift towards tactical spending, although at the same time it also shows that cuts in spending are less likely for storage than other areas of IT.

Titled “IDC's Annual European Storage Survey: Understanding User Needs in a Changing Economic Climate”, the seventh annual storage survey from IDC’s EMEA storage research team explores the awareness and adoption of new storage technologies, while assessing the impact external forces are having on European storage budgets.

The 38 question survey shows how the deteriorating economic environment around the world is causing many storage managers to rethink their budgets. Quick-fix solutions naturally topped the list of choices when those surveyed were asked what changes were most likely to occur as a result of current economic conditions.

IDC says that those canvassed said that they were likely to deal with economic downturns by freezing spending related to new projects, switching to lower-cost technology or increasing the approvals needed for spending decisions.

Interestingly, storage was cited as being far less likely to experience spending cuts during these difficult economic times than other technologies such as PCs, printers, servers, and networking equipment.

“Changing economic conditions and new technologies such as server and storage virtualisation are clearly altering the way European storage managers design and deploy their storage infrastructure,” said Eric Sheppard, program manager for IDC's EMEA storage research.

“Our survey suggests that the current economic conditions will result in a short-term shift towards tactical spending on storage, while rising adoption of server virtualisation is driving new interest in advanced features provided by storage virtualisation offerings.”

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