EMC top storage software provider for fifth consecutive year, analyst firm reports

EMC Corporation, the world leader in information storage and management, was the number one provider of storage software in 2004, for the fifth consecutive year, according to a report released today by IDC.

EMC extended its worldwide storage software lead last year to 30.9% revenue share, growing revenue faster than the next four closest competitors. In the fourth quarter, number one EMC led with 31.7% revenue share, growing storage software revenue more than twice as fast as number two Veritas and number three Computer Associates, which both lost share compared with the year-ago quarter.

Howard Elias, EMC`s Executive Vice-President of Corporate Marketing and Office of Technology, said: "EMC continues to distinguish itself from the rest of the storage software industry by delivering industry-leading information lifecycle management solutions to customers around the world. Our software businesses accelerated in 2004 with strong gains across all of the software market segments. We strengthened our position in the software market in 2004 and are confident our execution will continue to offer significant value for our customers going forward."

IDC reported that EMC continued to be number one in two of the storage software market`s fastest growing segments in 2004 and the fourth quarter: storage resource management (SRM) and storage replication software. In the fourth quarter, number one EMC led the SRM software segment with 55.2% revenue share, growing revenue more than five times faster than number two Veritas. EMC also extended its lead in the replication software segment during the fourth quarter, growing its revenue share to 43.4%, more than four times that of its closest competitor. In the backup and recovery software segment, EMC grew its fourth quarter revenues by 22.4%, the highest growth rate among the five largest providers, according to IDC.

An IDC report released earlier this month found that EMC was number one in external disk storage systems revenue in 2004 with 21.1% share, growing revenue approximately four times faster than the total market. In the fourth quarter, number one EMC grew its portion of that market for the sixth consecutive quarter, gaining more share than any of the next six largest suppliers.