An International Data Corp report estimates the growth of disk storage subsystems sales slowed to 8% in 1996 over 1995. This is attributed to the fall off in revenue from disk sales on IBM Corp S/390 mainframes, mid-range IBM AS/400 systems, and Digital Equipment Corp OpenVMS-based minicomputers. Most of the 8% growth – the market was worth a total of $23.89bn in 1996 – was due to sales on Unix, Windows NT and NetWare systems. Disk subsystem sales on Unix systems were up 30% over 1995 to $7.37bn, NT was up 131% to $1.81bn and NetWare up 8% to $3.42bn. S/390 disk sales declined 6% to $3.94bn, AS/400 sales were down 15% to $1.44bn and OpenVMS down 12% to $700m. IDC reckons the market will pick up this year, growing by an average of 13% to reach $27.01bn, again driven by Unix, NT and NetWare. RAID system sales in 1996 accounted for $19.91bn of the $23.89bn market which saw Unix- based RAID sales up 61% to $6.34bn, NetWare up 22% to $2.8bn, NT up 154% to $1.34bn. RAID revenue is expected to increase by an average of 16% this year to reach $23.15bn.
