Report: Storage Sales Strong
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
.