Storage Management Software Market Grew In 2001, Study Finds

to Gartner Dataquest.

The biggest challenge for the storage market is customers have lost their appetites for procuring enterprisewide storage infrastructures, said Derek Gamradt, vice president of engineering and CTO of StorNet, a storage solution provider in Englewood, Colo. Many customers are now looking more to software for help.

"The funding [for hardware is not there, the multimillion-dollar opportunities are not there," Gamradt said. "The opportunity is for software to solve specific customer pains, such as backup and recovery, virtualization and consolidation. Many of these market opportunities are being solved by start-ups with great technology but poor marketing."

During 2001, new storage management software license revenue hit $4.9 billion, up about 3 percent from the $4.8 billion recorded in 2000.

The study counted as revenue only sales of software sold as a product with a separate part number, said Carolyn DiCenzo, chief analyst for Gartner Dataquest's storage group.

The study included vendor revenue for the software rather than end-user revenue and did not include professional services or maintenance, she said. Including services or maintenance would have raised the total revenue about 31 percent, she said.

The figures for individual companies included revenue from companies acquired in 2001, DiCenzo said. For instance, the Veritas figure included the revenue of The Kernal Group, acquired in 2001, but the Legato figure excluded revenue from OTG Software, acquired this year.

EMC was once again the No. 1 vendor in the storage management software category, with revenue of $1.5 billion, up 10 percent over 2000. Veritas kept its No. 2 position with sales of $977 million, up 13.7 percent.

IBM also remained in the third spot, with revenue growth in this area at 32.4 percent. Computer Associates International kept the fourth spot, despite revenue falling by more than 67 percent to $202 million. That drop was due to an accounting change, DiCenzo said.

Moving to the No. 5 position from No. 8 was Compaq, with 2001 revenue of $198 million. "Compaq has really done a full-court press on software," DiCenzo said. "Their arrays sell well, and software sells with them. Plus, Compaq can go back to its installed base with software."

Legato Systems, BMC Software, Storage Technology, Network Appliance and Hitachi Data Systems round out the top 10.