IT managers are increasing their spending on storage
software as they try to keep up with compliance, data protection
and management issues, according to a new report from
IDC.
Worldwide storage software sales are growing more than twice as
fast as storage hardware sales, the analyst found. According to
IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker, worldwide
storage software sales grew 14.9% year on year, with IT managers
spending $2.1 billion in the first quarter of 2005.
This marks the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit
year-over-year growth.
In a separate study of storage hardware sales, IDC found that total
disk storage systems sales grew at 6.0% in the first quarter,
year-on-year.
Rhoda Phillips, research manager for IDC Storage Software, said,
"Spending growth related to data protection, including replication,
backup, and archive software, is an indicator of customers'
continued concerns about application availability, data management
and business continuity."