Fuelled by increasing regulatory compliance and demands for business continuity and fast recovery, the disk-based data protection market will continue to expand at a rate two to three times faster than the overall storage market, new research from IDC claims.
According to IDC, disk-based data protection is a very large market, reaching US$8bn in user IT spending in 2006 and poised to generate more than US$50bn in software and hardware purchases through to 2010.
“We have seldom seen so much unmet pent-up demand for a market that is already so large,” said Robert Gray, research vice-president, worldwide storage systems at IDC.
“Latent demand is also high in the small and medium-sized business market. However, traditional storage solutions are totally inadequate to meet current and future demand, creating significant opportunities for innovative suppliers,” Gray added.
Users want a unified solution approach to data protection, security and data management, supporting an orientation toward simplicity and integration, said Laura DuBois, research director, storage software at IDC.
“Storage solution suppliers must build a broad ecosystem of data-protection functions through innovation, acquisition or partnership and collaboration,” she said.
By John Kennedy
