4.009: leading from the front
Earlier this week, IDC published the results of its Storage User Demand Study, 2011 — Spring Edition: Unlocking the Minds of Storage Users. Among their findings this year was a notable use of outsourced storage, emerging demand for FCoE (but with limited commitment to the technology), and a predominant preference for midrange and modular storage.
Surveyed users also forecasted that little would change in the way they utilize storage subsystems over the coming year. If true, I would think this bodes well for EMC, especially in light of the results of two key findings presented the SUDS, 2011 report.
out in front of growing storage markets
First, IDC is forecasting a significant capacity growth trend for high-end external storage for the coming years…increasing from just short of 30% annual capacity growth in 2011 to more than 40% growth in 2013. I believe this is a very realistic projection, especially given the strength of VMAX’s market share gains over the past 2+ years. Even as the mid-range is playing an ever-increasing role, the average capacity of Symmetrix arrays has also grown steadily over the past decade. Since VMAX is inarguably the most scalable enterprise array in the market (a point I recently underscored on this blog).
The second finding in the SUDS report is perhaps even more provocative. With respondents distributed across USA, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Europe, EMC was selected as the platform of choice for 7 out of 8 applications. From SAP to Oracle applications to business analytics to VDI to Exchange & Sharepoint, users around the globe indicated an overwhelming preference for EMC storage for their applications.
Again, given the strength of both EMC’s VNX and VMAX product lines, I’m not really surprised.
What *IS* perhaps surprising is that both IBM and Hitachi are virtual no-shows in this survey. IBM appears twice and Hitachi only once among the top 3 selections across 8 applications. I tend to support IDC’s observation – customers are predominately electing to go with best-of-breed pure-play storage offerings. I almost daily have discussions with customers who are most interested in the highly differentiated capabilities and trusted track record of EMC’s information infrastructure products to compliment whatever happens to be the server du jour of their shop.
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