The Canadian storage market grew 31 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2002, according to a report by IDC Ltd., released last month.
The open storage area network (SAN) sector expanded 43 per cent while the network attached storage arena grew 34 per cent, the research firm said.
Two clear leaders emerged in the Canadian market in 2002, said Hoang Nguyen, program manager, at IDC in Framingham, Mass.: Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. own more than 50 per cent of the market share.
While the numbers for the entire year weren’t readily available, in the fourth quarter alone IBM grew 27 per cent, garnering a total of 65 per cent market share.
HP grew 33 per cent with a total of 26 per cent of the fourth quarter’s revenue, and was beat out for second place by EMC Corp., which grew 99 per cent and had 37 per cent market share that quarter.
Globally, heavyweights IBM and HP went head-to-head in the fourth quarter of 2002 to see who would be crowned king of the quarter. Yet no clear winner emerged from the ring, according the report, which declared a draw between the two gear-makers.
Both garnered 25 per cent of the global storage market share in the fourth quarter, however IBM showed the most marked improvement from the third quarter to the fourth, growing 34 per cent while HP grew only six per cent.
Globally, the entire storage market fared better in 2002 than initially expected. The sector declined only 15 per cent last year compared to the expected 21 per cent. Just in the fourth quarter, revenue increased 12 per cent up to US$5.4 billion.
IDC likened the performance of the storage market to the server market, and John McArthur, group vice-president of storage research at IDC said in a statement the firm expects to see a “return to more normal seasonal changes because companies have already made their major adjustments to storage spending.”
Still, HP got the gold medal for the entire year because of its Compaq holdings, edging out IBM with its 21 per cent market share compared to IBM’s 20 per cent. EMC followed with 12 per cent. Although Dell Computer Corp. only grabbed five per cent, its market share grew substantially at 13 per cent, second only in growth to IBM at 15 per cent.
As for the rest of the fourth quarter, EMC finished third with 11 per cent revenue share. Sun Microsystems Inc., Dell and Hitachi Ltd. tied for fourth place with about five per cent each. Sun, however, posted the strongest growth of those three at 17 per cent.
Charlotte Rancourt, research director in IDC’s disk storage systems program, said in a statement that further fluctuations in vendor market share are expected for 2003. She said new innovations in business and technology strategies are in the cards for the sector.
The open SAN arena outdid the rest of the market boasting a growth of 14 per cent in the fourth quarter with HP and EMC leading the pack at 28 and 26 per cent respectively.
In comparison, network attached storage (NAS) grew four per cent, with Network Appliance Inc. coming out on top with 36 per cent with EMC on its heels at 33 per cent.
For more information visit IDC Canada’s Web site at www.idc.ca.
