Storage software market decline first in five years

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 10 June 2009 17:28

The global software storage market has declined for the first time in more than five years, with most companies in the market experiencing negative, or very low year-over-year growth.

According to IDC's latest worldwide quarterly storage software tracker, the worldwide storage software market was hit with its first decline in 21 consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth in the first quarter of this year, with revenues of $2.8 billion, representing –5.2% growth over the same quarter a year ago.
 
Research analyst, storage software at IDC, Michael Margossian, said today the decline was the first year-over-year decline in more than five years.

"The combination of the normally slow first quarter for most companies with the continued economic climate was displayed in this quarter's results. A majority of companies displayed either negative or very low year-over-year growth."

And, according to IDC’s Laura DuBois, on a yearly basis, a majority of the sub-markets declined from the previous year's first quarter, predominantly affecting the device management, replication, and infrastructure markets, all segments closely aligned with the storage systems themselves.

DuBois says file system and management software were able to grow amidst the current economic climate, and, she added. "the overall storage software market was pulled down by the underperforming large companies that make up a bulk of the sub-markets, (but) once they start to recover, they will bring the entire market up with them."

IDC reported that EMC led the overall market with 21.8% revenue share in the first quarter of this year, with. Symantec holding onto the second position with 18.9% revenue share.  IBM was third with 12.2% revenue share, NetApp finished in fourth position with 8.3% revenue share, while CA and HP rounded out IDC’s top five with 4.3% and 3.5% revenue share, respectively.