Gartner/Dataquest projects that the worldwide market for storage management software will grow from $5.3 billion in 2000 to $16.7 billion in 2005. And the SRM sector is expected to get a hefty chunk of this. Gartner predicts it will reach $1.7 billion by 2003. Current SRM tool revenue is under $400 million, which leaves projected growth of well over $1 billion.
Such a big potential market, of course, has encouraged plenty of other players to jump on the bandwagon. Industry heavyweights like BMC Software Inc., CA, the Softek division of Fujitsu Ltd (KLS: FUJI.KL), and IBM Corp (NYSE: IBM) all offer some form of SRM, although none can drill down and provide as much detail as the likes of TrelliSoft, according to analysts.
A whole bunch of SRM startups have also emerged to keep TrelliSoft company. They include Arkeia, Trebia Networks Inc., and Astrum Software Corp., among others.
As Donovan managed to hire quite a few ex-Platinum execs, TrelliSoft probably stands as good a chance of any of these startups of hitting the SRM jackpot.
Right now, however, its product has its weaknesses. The ability to share data with other management systems is not available, which is a burden, as IT managers will have to keep the others up and running until all the data is migrated to the new system, which could take some time.