Storage
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Worldwide sales of external storage systems grew to $3.5 billion in the second quarter, up 8% over the same period in 2003, according to analyst company IDC.
Worldwide sales of external storage systems grew to $3.5 billion in the second quarter, up 8% over the same period in 2003, according to analyst company IDC.
Much of that growth was driven by demand for networked storage, as organisations have moved away from the use of directly attached storage devices. Networked storage (both network-attached and open area network storage) sales were up 18% quarter-on-quarter, with EMC leading the market with a 28% share, ahead of Hewlett-Packard with 22% and IBM's 12%.
Overall, EMC outsold its rivals, giving it 21% of the total external systems market, and allowing it to pull ahead of Hewlett-Packard for the first time since HP merged with Compaq, and as HP's share slipped from 21% to 18%. Behind those leaders were IBM with 14% of the market and Sun Microsystems and Hitachi both with 8%.
However, competition in the market is increasing. In fact, the largest rises in market share for the three months did not come from the high-end suppliers, but from mid-range system vendors Dell and Network Appliance.
IDC highlights the ever-growing - and universal - appetite for storing data. Total storage capacity shipped during the second quarter rose to 275 petabytes - up 40% year-on-year.
The report is slightly more bullish than research elsewhere. Rival analyst group Gartner estimated that global sales of external disk storage systems grew 5% during the second quarter.
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