Slower Growth for WW Storage Software Market in 4Q08

According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker, the worldwide storage software market experienced its 21st consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2008 (4Q08) with revenues of $3.03 billion, an 3.6% increase over the same quarter one year ago.

"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."

"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. However, same year Q3 to Q4 comparisons are negative or neutral reflecting the downward pressure from the worldwide economic crisis," added James Baker, IDC’s research manager for Storage Software. "The two largest segments – Data Protection and Recovery Software and Storage Replication Software – dropped just slightly between Q3 and Q4."

EMC led the overall market with 26% revenue share in the fourth quarter of 2008. Symantec held onto the second position with 18.3% revenue share, while IBM finished in the third position with 13.2% revenue share. NetApp finished in the fourth position with 7.5% revenue share while HP and CA rounded out the top 5 with 4.5% and 3.7% revenue share, respectively.

Top 5 Vendors, Worldwide Storage Software Revenue,
Fourth Quarter of 2008
(Revenues are in Millions)

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker, March 2008
Note: Starting in Q2 2007, IBM is reported as the combined entity of IBM and Softek.
Taxonomy Note: IDC has updated its storage software taxonomy to reflect changes in the market over the last several years. The storage software taxonomy includes eight functional markets: data protection and recovery, archiving (including email archiving), storage replication, storage management, storage device management, storage infrastructure, file system, and ‘other’.