Storage Management Market Shows First Yearly Decline

The worldwide storage management software market showed its first year-over-year decline in 2002.

The market, according to a report from industry analyst firm Gartner Inc., showed license revenue of $4.7 billion last year — a 6 percent decline over 2001 figures.

EMC remained the top storage management software vendor last year, and grabbed 25.6 percent of the market. Veritas Software, EMC’s revival, had 18.6 percent of the market share. Gartner analysts said if the $1.5 billion in array- and switch-based software were excluded from the analysis, Veritas would be in the lead, and EMC would move to the Number 3 slot behind IBM.

”Only three of the top 100 vendors were able to grow software revenue in a very challenging year,” says Carolyn DiCenzo, vice president for Gartner’s storage group. Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems, which sells its storage array software directly, and through Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, saw 77 percent growth in 2002.

HP bought Compaq Computer in 2001, and even though revenue declined 2 percent in 2002, the combined company moved into the No. 4 slot, up from the No. 5 position earned by Compaq in 2001.

”The depressed economy, resulting in tight spending and pressure on product pricing, has finally taken its toll on the storage software market,” says DiCenzo. ”Infrastructure and data management software will remain under pressure as long as server and array sales are depressed. Device and storage resource management tools continue to report growth.”