Safe data storage is at least as important as Y2K compliance, euro readiness or e-commerce capability, according to research conducted by Infratest Burke InCom Ltd on behalf of Hewlett-Packard Ltd. HP, eager to exploit the growth of the data storage market, played up the statistics, which found that 94% of businesses could not survive a catastrophic loss of data. The survey asked 500 MIS managers across Europe to comment on the importance of data storage compared to other IT hot topics and the results showed differing attitudes to storage and backup across EU countries. Unsurprisingly, the UK had the least interest in euro compliance, 76% classing it as less important than storage, against the mean of 44%. The survey also found, predictably, that 74% of respondents believed data storage to be extremely important but only 48% of French companies agreed. Despite this, the UK and Germany appeared to have the least interest in backup, with 79% of German and 56% of UK companies without formal backup procedures. Italy and France had the strongest adherence to the procedures, once in place. HP also revealed Tuesday an ad campaign to commence later this year, aimed at boosting sales of storage devices over the run-up to Y2K. Dayrell Drake, HP’s storage group European market development manager, said: If there’s one time a company wants to make sure it’s backed up its data, its before Y2K.
