Report: Storage Sales Strong

Researcher IDC says storage-software revenue increased by more than $1 billion in 2004.
By Bill Snyder ,

The market for storage software, driven by the need to protect corporate data and comply with new federal regulations, grew by 16.1% in 2004. The strong growth pushed the market to $7.9 billion, an increase of more than $1 billion, according to market researcher IDC, which issued the report Monday.

EMC

(EMC)

again holds the overall lead in the category, with a market share of 30.9%. The Hopkinton, Mass., storage giant boosted its software revenue by nearly 27%, well ahead of

Veritas Software

(VRTS) - Get Report

, its nearest rival.

Veritas, which is in the process of merging with

Symantec

(SYMC) - Get Report

lost a bit of share, but still grew revenue by 17.3% and posted a share of 21.9%, according to IDC.

EMC's growth in software, particularly backup, has been helped by its 2003 acquisition of

Legato

.

The report also indicates that smaller vendors are continuing to lose business to the major players. "Other" vendors, as a category, lost nearly 2 points of share, more than any company mentioned in the report.

Computer Associates

(CA) - Get Report

finished third, followed by

IBM

(IBM) - Get Report

and

Hewlett-Packard

(HPQ) - Get Report

.

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