The global market for storage software reported a slight rise 0.9% during the second quarter (2Q) 2012 to $3.36bn, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).
IDC’s Worldwide Storage Software QView reveals that the rise marks the second successive quarter of declined year-over-year rise for the market and a lower performance level over any time since the fourth quarter of 2009.
IDC Storage Software research director Eric Sheppard said the second quarter storage software results were mixed when viewed by supplier or functional market.
"Indeed, five of the top eight suppliers experienced revenue growth, but this was offset by declines within a few of the market’s larger suppliers," Sheppard said.
"Most functional markets showed increased investments, but the increases were far smaller than the market had been experiencing over the past two years.
"These generally lower results can be partially attributed to suppressed economic growth in Europe, reduced government/education investments, and transitions specific to a few large suppliers."
According to the report, EMC, IBM, and Symantec reported highest rises in market shares of about 26.4%, 14.7%, and 14.6% respectively, while CommVault and EMC witnessed the largest organic rise during the period with 21.5% and 7.4% rises year overyear.
During the 2Q12, the Data Protection & Recovery and Archiving Software reported 2.4% and 2.2% year over year growth rates representing the fastest growing market segments.
The report revealed that firms about 1,000 employees invested $1.5bn in storage software during the quarter, while reported 1% decline over the corresponding quarter in 2011.
Global storage software investments by small and midsized firms reported 5.2% year over year to $574m, while spending by governments and education on storage software declined 1.5% to $472m in Q212.
