Under a recent agreement, storage solution providers Hitachi Data Systems Corp. (HDS) and Network Appliance Inc. (NetApp) will jointly market and sell network attached storage (NAS) solutions.
HDS will offer NetApp enterprise NAS gateway solutions for Hitachi Freedom Storage environments managed by HDS’s HiCommand Management Framework tools.The NAS gateway will be available for Hitachi Freedom Storage high-end and modular products starting early this year. The deal plays on the respective strengths of both companies; HDS has been fervently developing its storage solution strategy and market share within the SAN market, while NetApp has been a mainstay within the best-of-breed enterprise NAS solution space. According to IDC Canada, the storage market is hot – the Toronto-based research firm has the growing Canadian storage market pegged at about $4.3 billion by 2003, of which about $1.5 billion is external storage.
EMC lagging behand in NAS and SAN: IDC
With competition in the storage marketplace intense this quarter, EMC Corp. was knocked out of first place in key market revenue areas, including network-attached storage (NAS) and open storage-area networks (SAN), a report from market research firm IDC shows.
In a marketplace marked by declining sales, Network Appliance Inc. in Sunnyvale, Calif., took the lead from EMC this past quarter in the NAS area, with 38 per cent revenue share compared with EMC’s 31 per cent. Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC had previously led the marketplace for several quarters. In the open SAN market, Hewlett-Packard Co. nudged EMC out of the top spot, taking 30 per cent revenue share, compared with EMC’s 27 per cent. Overall, EMC saw its worldwide disk sales drop 21 per cent quarter-to-quarter, according to the report. Tokyo-based Hitachi Ltd. and IBM Corp. saw significant overall disk storage growth this past quarter, up 23 per cent and seven per cent, respectively. EMC did hold onto its lead in overall network storage market sales (NAS combined with open SAN), with 28 per cent revenue share, according to Framingham, Mass.-based IDC. HP maintained its market share lead in terms of total storage revenue, with 27 per cent market share, followed by IBM with 20 per cent.