STORAGE

The worldwide storage software market continued on its strong growth trajectory in the second quarter of 2005. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker, the worldwide storage software market grew 11.8% year over year to $2.1 billion in 2Q05. This is the seventh consecutive quarter the market has experienced double-digit year-over-year growth. "The storage software market continues its steady progress and pattern of double-digit growth, driven by customer awareness and concerns about expanding capacity and data protection," said Rhoda Phillips, research manager for IDC Storage Software. "Spending for storage software will continue to account for a greater portion of the business investment required to meet these needs. This spending pattern reinforces IDC's expectation that storage software will post strong year-over-year growth in 2005." The storage replication market posted the largest gain at 25.1% year-over-year growth in the second quarter, while the back-up and archive and storage resource management software markets continued to represent the largest storage software markets, with each representing one third of the market. The file systems software market once again enjoyed strong results in the second quarter with 19.8% year-over-year growth. EMC led the overall market with 30.6% revenue share in the second quarter of 2005. VERITAS maintained its second position with 19.8% revenue share, while IBM finished in the third position with 9.7% revenue share, posting a strong result of 18.0% year-over-year growth. Network Appliance rounded out the top 5 with 6.6% revenue share. Network Appliance posted the strongest quarterly result among the top 5 vendors, with 49.4% year-over-year growth.