Worldwide Storage Software Market Still Going Strong with Double-Digit Growth in the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2005

IDC:The worldwide storage software market grew 11.2% year over year to $2.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005, marking nine consecutive quarters of double-digit year-over-year growth. For the full year 2005, storage software revenues totaled $8.9 billion, injecting nearly one billion dollars of new revenue into the marketplace and growing 12.6% year over year.

In the fourth quarter of 2005, the storage replication market posted the largest gain at 21.7% year-over-year growth, while the back-up and archive and storage resource management software markets continued to represent the largest storage software markets, each representing a third of the market, respectively.

The storage software market continues to exhibit steady growth, particularly in the replication and backup and archive segments, driven by customer requirements of trying to protect and secure information in an increasingly complex IT environment. This demand is in response to the growth of information and the impact of the requirements to have more information online with greater protection throughout the entire business cycle.

EMC led the overall market this quarter with 29.2% revenue share in the fourth quarter of 2005. Symantec took the second position with 19.7% revenue share, while IBM finished in the third position with 11.5% revenue share, posting a strong result of 32.6% year-over-year growth. Network Appliance and HP once again rounded the top 5 in a statistical tie with 6.7% and 6.5% revenue share, respectively. Network Appliance and IBM posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth among the top 5 vendors, with 41.3% and 32.6% year-over-year growth, respectively.

Full Year Results for Storage Software Market

For the full year, EMC maintained its lead in the storage software market with 29.7% revenue share, followed by Symantec and IBM with 20.3% and 10.5% revenue share, respectively. Network Appliance and HP rounded out the top 5 in a statistical tie with 6.6% and 6.5%, respectively. Among the top 5 vendors, Network Appliance and IBM posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth during 2005, with 45.4% and 26.8% growth, respectively.

Tables, see:

: IDC worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker, Q405

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