EMC-HP storage race heats up
640334
(InfoWorld) - Number two storage systems maker Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has closed the gap between it and number one EMC Corp. to what research company IDC calls "a statistical tie." But EMC argues its lead over HP is greater if co-branded Dell-EMC storage devices are counted as EMC sales instead of as Dell Inc. sales. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Tracker, EMC Corp. held an industry-leading 20 percent market share for external disk storage systems in the second quarter of 2006, followed by HP with a 19.3 percent share. EMC had a 21 percent share to HP's 18.9 percent in the second quarter of 2005. In the latest results, IBM Corp earned third place with a 13.2 percent share, while Hitachi Data Systems Corp., Dell Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. recorded market share of between 7 percent and 8 percent, which IDC labeled a three-way tie. IDC considers companies to be tied for market share if the difference between them is less than 1 percentage point, said Brad Nisbet, program manager for IDC Storage Systems. The second quarter figures show a tight race between EMC and HP, but EMC spokesman Greg Eden said EMC is further ahead than those numbers suggest. The market share numbers don't count storage devices that EMC manufactures for Dell. They are co-branded as Dell/EMC storage but counted as Dell sales revenue, he said. If Dell/EMC sales were counted as EMC revenue, the company's second quarter market share would be 26.1 percent, Eden said. IDC confirmed that number. However, EMC stumbled in the second quarter when inventory problems prevented it from fulfilling orders for some of its Symmetrix DMX3 high-end and Clarion CX3 midrange storage models. "We had double-digit growth in our bookings for our storage," Eden said, but customers wanted the newer models and were not content to buy the older ones. Manufacturers with the strongest second-quarter percentage growth from a year earlier were Sun Microsystems Inc. (19.1 percent), Hitachi (17 percent) and HP (10.3 percent.). "HP has been executing well under new management," Nisbet said, referring to President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd, who replaced Carly Fiorina in March 2005. HP's storage revenue grew by 22 percent in Western Europe in the quarter, he said. Sun reported the strongest quarterly jump due in part to its acquisition of storage vendor StorageTek in 2005 and the development of the first StorageTek disk storage products, Nisbet said, while Hitachi recorded strong sales of its high-end storage products. IDC said the second quarter, which ended June 30, was the 13th consecutive quarter of revenue growth for the external disk storage sector. Revenue rose 8.5 percent to US$4.2 billion, from $3.8 billion a year earlier. Storage demand is growing as enterprises generate more data they have to manage and archive, he said. "Storage continues to be an integral component of a full (IT) solution," Nisbet said.
660201
I believe that investors no longer see EMC dominating the storage market. That's a good thing-in a way, even for EMC.
373366
New entry-level workgroup storage devices start at $3,000.
450948
(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard Co. is leveraging Microsoft Corp. software in a new portfolio of storage products aimed at taking on EMC Corp. in the small-to-medium-sized (SMB) market. HP's StorageWorks All-in-One (AiO) Storage Systems come in two models for a range of capacity needs, and can be installed in less than 10 clicks of a mouse, the company said. The systems provide storage, sharing, management, back-up and protection for SMBs' application and file data. The HP StorageWorks AiO400 has four drive bays with serial ATA (SATA) ports and capacity of 1T byte of networked storage for US$5,000. For SMBs that have bigger storage needs, the HP StorageWorks AiO600 has six drive bays in a rack or tower and can provide 1.5T bytes of SATA capacity for $6,700; 3T bytes of SATA capacity for $9,000 or 876G bytes of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) capacity for $9,250. SAS drives are typically more reliable and higher performing than SATA drives, and so storage devices with these drives cost more. The systems are based on Microsoft's Windows Storage Server and are specifically designed or Microsoft environments, HP said. The new AiO systems include point-and-click tools for working with both Microsoft Exchange messaging server and the SQL Server database. HP first announced it was planning networked storages for SMBs in July, saying it wanted to take on EMC in that market as well as capitalize on what IDC predicts will be a $5.7 billion market opportunity by 2010. The company designed the new offerings to be simple so SMBs can install and maintain them without a full-time IT department, HP said. HP plans to sell the AiO systems mainly through its channel partners, which the company said number more than 145,000 worldwide. Â
505176
(Source: Network Appliance) The focus on this independent study was a comparison of the total cost of enterprise-level Network Appliance, HP and EMC storage products in Oracle, IBM DB2&trade;, Microsoft SQL Server&trade; and other database environments.  Download this white paper to review their findings.
338227
HP, at its Technology Forum in Las Vegas, said it is developing storage technology that more accurately assigns storage capacity as needed in an enterprise.
618355
Hewlett-Packard has unveiled its storage grid architecture strategyâan approach that company executives claim is faster and more efficient than comparable products and systems on the market today.
271265
IBM on Friday took aim at its primary competitor, EMC, by announcing storage virtualization software that allows EMC users to utilize storage systems from EMC, Hitachi, or IBM.
442223
Despite the buzz over the public offering of its VMware software business, EMC Corp. of Hopkinton isn't forgetting its roots as a maker of data storage systems. The company will today unveil major upgrades to its key storage products.
681956
When it comes to storage technology, there are a number of vendors pushing back the frontiers in what is possible. This week Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), one of the giants in this extremely competitive space
375468
The research firm estimated that the market for disk storage systems grew by 5% overall, to $5 billion, from $4.77 billion a year earlier in the second quarter. HP led the way, followed by IBM and EMC.
446260
The latest storage numbers are in and -- big surprise -- storage spending is up.
674943
EMC Corp. , the world's  largest data storage maker, had the fastest revenue growth  among industry majors in the third quarter while  Hewlett-Packard Co.  decelerated, market researcher IDC  said on Thursday.
746915
EMC Corp. , the world's largest data storage maker, had the fastest revenue growth among industry majors in the third quarter while Hewlett-Packard Co.  decelerated, market researcher IDC said on Thursday.
691315
Think disk made out of trees Technology Forum HP is going greener than a green thing from a green land with its latest storage boxesâ¦
670727
EMC is rolling out a new Clariion A4X storage system for small- and medium-size businesses that scales up to 60TB. The array mixes SAS and SATA drives, so users can set up a tiered storage system for both critical data and less important data to be stored on the disk best suited for the task.
721257
(InfoWorld) - Competing with Dell Inc. for small business users who need to back up their data, Hewlett-Packard Co. launched a low-priced, disk-based backup and recovery system on Monday. The HP StorageWorks D2D Backup System will automatically save the data from as many as four servers, with total capacity of either 750G bytes or 1.5T bytes. Users can restore lost files within minutes, compared to a process of several hours for a tape-based system, HP said. Most users say that tape-based systems are the most cost-effective method of backing up data, but as new accounting laws demand greater storage regulations, that could soon change, said Adam Thew, marketing director for HP's StorageWorks division. Compared to connecting a direct-attached tape storage device to every server in a business, HP's new disk-to-disk product can reduce the cost of ownership and chance of human error, Thew said during a webcast Monday. The D2D system is designed for small business owners with little IT management experience, offering a simple setup wizard interface, Web-based monitoring, and standard Ethernet cables with iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface). Still, HP says tape-based storage is important for a complete backup system. "D2D will not replace tapes entirely. We do recommend that customers keep a single tape-based system offsite for disaster recovery," Thew said. Dell and its partner EMC Corp. launched a similar backup system on Feb. 20, offering the disk-based CX3-10 SAN (storage area network) array for small and medium businesses. Like HP, Dell says its system works best in concert with tape-based storage, and also launched two new products in its tape library line, the PowerVault TL2000 and PowerVault TL4000. Dell's systems are intended for buyers with larger storage needs and hardware budgets than HP's, with the CX3-10 starting at US$22,000 and the PowerVault libraries starting at 9,300. HP sells the D2D110 model with 750G bytes useable storage capacity for $1,999, and the D2D120 model with 1.5T bytes for $2,999. HP charges $1,000 more to bundle its Data Protector Express software with the products.