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Report Results Cause Stir: Page 2 of 3

The research firm forecasts that while EMC just edged out Compaq in revenue for 2000, Compaq is expected to regain the top slot by about $400 million in 2001. The forecast leaves EMC, with 15.6 percent market share, trailing Compaq's 18.2 percent.

Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HWP) are also expected to see drops in revenue in the overall disk storage market in 2001. IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) will remain in the third position and will be the only company in the top five to see growth in 2001, the report says.

It’s not all doom and gloom for EMC, however. The storage giant remains the top supplier of external storage systems (those that connect to any computer operating system), capturing over 25.3 percent of the market. Compaq is second on 14.7 percent.

Nevertheless, IDC expects the external storage systems market to be down overall by 18.1 percent in 2001.

Overall, IDC predicts a robust market for internal and external disk storage over the next few years, with several key growth segments tagged to the integration of disk storage onto networks. But over the next five years, value will be concentrated not in the disk hardware itself but in the following areas:

  • Software that delivers robust management of storage infrastructure
  • Software that allows negotiation among SANs, LANs, and WANs
  • Services associated with the design and implementation of a dedicated storage architecture