EMC extends market share lead in information storage systems

EMC Corporation continued to distance itself from competitors in 2000, according to a new report from Gartner Dataquest, a leading independent research and advisory firm.

EMC grew its number one share of the information storage systems market to 34.6%, gaining nearly three times more market share than any other supplier.

The industry`s first independent market share research using actual full-year 2000 results revealed that, for the second consecutive year, EMC`s revenue share of the external RAID storage market exceeded the combined shares of Compaq, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems - the next four competitors and the four largest server vendors in the world.

Compaq, a distant number two with 10.8%, less than a third of EMC`s share, was the only other supplier with a double-digit market share in 2000. Hitachi Data Systems fell to eighth place in 2000, with 3.7% market share.

The research, unveiled at the annual Gartner Group Storage Conference, underlines the momentum behind the shift in strategic importance and functionality toward open, intelligent information storage solutions. Recognising the shift, many large corporations such as Galileo International have deployed centralised, server-agnostic information storage infrastructures.

Frank Auer, Galileo`s VP of Systems and Operations, said: "The end goal for any IT enterprise is information. Servers and networks only exist for one reason, to give access to that information."

Roger Cox, senior analyst at Gartner Dataquest, said: "Information storage has become the most essential component of a successful IT strategy. Corporations must manage and extract value from their growing volumes of information. The fastest growth and greatest demand is for networked information storage deployments. Gartner estimates that by 2005 more than 80% of external storage will be networked."

Gartner Dataquest reported that EMC also was the top supplier of external storage systems for each of the four largest server operating system market segments: Sun Solaris (EMC 43.1%, Sun 30.9%), Windows NT/2000 (EMC 31.9%, Compaq 24.9%), HP-UX (EMC 45%, HP 38.6%), and OS/390 (EMC 48.5%, IBM 29%).

EMC also was the top supplier of external storage systems for the emerging Linux market, according to Gartner Dataquest.

EMC also extended its leading market share lead in storage management software in 2000, according to an April report from Gartner Dataquest, growing nearly six points to a 25.5% share last year. EMC outpaced the next closest software competitor by more than nine percentage points in the rapidly growing worldwide storage management software market.