I've gotten into the habit of recapping the IDC storage vendor share reports here on this blog.
Not to brag on EMC's behalf, per se (although there's some opportunity to do that, which I will studiously try to avoid), but to pick out some of the more interesting trends in market evolution.
No real surprises, from my perspective, but some interesting nuggets that might be worth considering.
The Usual Disclaimer
IDC's estimates aren't perfect, but -- over the years -- they've been pretty darn accurate. Vendors generally don't supply IDC actual figures, instead, IDC comes up with numbers based on publicly available. IDC counts "as sold" rather than "as built", so, for example, Sun gets credit for the HDS arrays they sell.
My commentary here is nothing more than my personal impressions, and I am no expert. To really dig into this stuff, you need to talk to IDC directly. They have amazing segmentation detail by price band, geography, etc. etc. that many of us use to understand the size and shape of this market.
The Spin
Many vendors issue a "spin release" after IDC's results, and show amazing creativity in presenting the results.
EMC issued it's own release, found here, but to recap the highlights:
- #1 position in both revenue and capacity shipped (external storage) -- 10th consecutive year.
- EMC extended revenue share lead over next two largest competitors.
- When EMC and the Dell resold component of EMC are combined, together they accounted for over one-fourth of the overall market growth
- in NAS, EMC maintained #1 position, took market share, and grew twice as fast as NetApp.
No real surprises here, but what else can we see?
What About iSCSI?
An interesting picture emerges.
If you look at the IDC numbers for all of 2007, the ranking is clear: Netapp #1 with 19.6%, EMC #2 with 17%, and Dell #3 with 12%.
But, if you look at the Dell/EMC combination (e.g. EMC products resold by Dell), a different picture emerges with Dell/EMC #1 at 25.8%, or significantly more market share than NetApp. So, depending on how you wanted to count it, we could arguably position EMC as "#1 in iSCSI", according to IDC.
Now, a few other things jump out. Strictly speaking, the clear market share leader in iSCSI is "other" (all the smaller vendors that IDC doesn't track) at 42.8%, so there are obviously a lot of smaller players that are finding a home here.
For all you iSCSI fans, the total market grew in 2007, a whopping 62% (arguably off a smaller base than FC), but significant growth that you just can't ignore. Most of it, not surprisingly, was smaller arrays, presumably sold to smaller shops.
My take? With no single vendor with more than 20% market share, it's hard to talk in terms of "leader" except in the abstract sense. I still think big portions of this market are up for grabs.
And, of course, EMC is working to get our share ;-)
And NAS?
I don't know how they got away with it, but NetApp has somehow brainwashed everyone into thinking that they're the "market leader" in NAS.
IDC would beg to disagree on this one.
In Q4, IDC says that EMC had around 41% market share, and NetApp had 28.3%. Based on those numbers, it doesn't look like even a close race, IMHO. Even if we were to add in all of IBM's contribution (7.5%), it's still pretty lopsided.
Of course, I don't think they'll be changing their marketing literature anytime soon ;-)
But this market, compared to iSCSI, has become fairly consolidated. You've got EMC and NetApp -- and then a whole bunch of single-digit (or worse) players.
At least it's easier to figure out who to talk to if you're in the market for a nice NAS solution.
We Did Come In #2 In One Category ...
IDC also supplies the operating system views, and there's one marketplace where EMC came in #2, and that's z/OS (mainframe). Can't win them all -- but I think that we might see some gap-closing during 2008 and beyond in this segment.
If EMC is #1, Then Who's #2?
When you look at the big IDC buckets (e.g. external RAID, networked storage), the ranking is consistent: EMC #1, IBM #2, HP #3. The others (Hitachi, NetApp, et. al.) really don't make the top ranks in any of the larger buckets.
Now, that might seem a bit confusing to some. Given that these two server companies don't invest a lot in storage (and presumably the other guys do), why is this?
Well, first remember that IDC counts "as sold", so Hitachi (through HP and Sun) and NetApp (through IBM) get some exposure there, but it's not to really change the pecking order, IMHO.
The real thing that's going on here is bundling -- companies that can sell servers and storage and everything else together -- and I think that's an advantage in certain segments of the market.
So, Where's The Growth?
No surprise -- smaller systems, sold to presumably smaller customers stands out as the big growth segment. If you follow the industry press, you'll recognize this trend.
But, I should also point out, almost all segments of the overall market grew substantially during 2007.
And, I guess I'm glad (and thankful) that EMC is getting more share over time -- thanks to all of you who are EMC customers and partners!
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