The worldwide storage software market experienced its 21st consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2008 with revenues of US$3.03 billion, an 3.6pc increase over the same quarter last year.
“The storage software market is starting to exhibit more of an impact from the economic trouble,” said Michael Margossian, research analyst, Storage Software at IDC.
“Even with the usually strong fourth quarter, most vendors showed signs of slowing down, and in some cases declining year over year.”
EMC led the overall market with 26pc revenue share in the fourth quarter of 2008. Symantec held onto the second position with 18.3pc revenue share, while IBM finished in the third position with 13.2pc revenue share.
NetApp finished in the fourth position with 7.5pc revenue share while HP and CA rounded out the top 5 with 4.5pc and 3.7pc revenue share, respectively.
“On a yearly basis, storage-based software showed continuing growth when comparing like quarters year over year. Particularly strong were the Data Protection and Recovery, File System Software, and Archiving segments,” added James Baker, IDC’s research manager for Storage Software.
“However, same year Q3 to Q4 comparisons are negative or neutral reflecting the downward pressure from the worldwide economic crisis.
“The two largest segments – Data Protection and Recovery Software and Storage Replication Software – dropped just slightly between Q3 and Q4,” Baker added.
By John Kennedy
