Worldwide storage software sales fell in the first quarter of this year – the first time it’s declined in 21 consecutive quarters.
IDC said that revenues fell to $2.8 billion in the first quarter of this year, -5.2 percent down compared to the same quarter in 2008.
Laura DuBois, IDC’s research director for the sector, said: “The overall storage software market was pulled down by the underperforming large companies that make up a bulk of the sub-markets. Once they start to recover, they will bring the entire market up with them.”
EMC held the pole position in the overall market with 21.8 percent revenue share, followed by Symantec and IBM. The following table shows the top five vendors worldwide – although EMC is still top of the pile, it also showed a decline in revenues quarter on quarter, year on year, with a decline of -14.5 percent. HP suffered an even more precipitous drop. Revenues are in millions. As you can see from the table, the “others” have it.
| Vendor | Q109 rev | Share | Q108 rev | Share | Growth |
| EMC | $612 | 21.8% | $716 | 24.2% | -14.5% |
| Symantec | $531 | 18.9% | $518 | 17.5% | 2.5% |
| IBM | $342 | 12.2% | $368 | 12.4% | -7% |
| NetApp | $233 | 8.3% | $245 | 8.3% | -4.7% |
| CA | $120 | 4.3% | $126 | 4.3% | -5% |
| HP | $97 | 3.5% | $123 | 4.2% | -21.5% |
| Others | $870 | 31% | $862 | 29.1% | 1% |
| All | $2,804 | 100% | $2,957 | 100% | -5.2% |
