Disk Storage Systems Market Ships 3,645 petabytes, growing 54.6% year over year.

What’s a good way of knowing how fast data is growing? Examine the external data storage systems market. Revenues so far have reached year-over-year growth of 20.4%, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reaches 3,645 petabytes, growing 54.5% year-over-year. What’s clear is that demand is strong and consistent. The trick is capturing a portion of that demand by offering products and services that align with the best interests of customers.

In the Network Backup market we witness the economics every day, from across the globe, businesses of all types are beginning to understand the value of protecting their digital assets. What we try to do is make it easy for IT professionals to get into the game, enabling them to add an additional profit center to their revenue stream.

The takeaway from this research, and other reports out there, is that we are entering an era of tremendous storage growth, because factors at play in the IT industry, and macro-enviornment, are changing the way people do business — something we recognize and encourage.

Disk Storage Systems Market Sustains Strong Double-Digit Growth Across All Sectors in Second Quarter, According to IDC

03 Sep 2010

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., September 3, 2010 – Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted year-over-year growth of 20.4%, totaling just over $5.0 billion, in the second quarter of 2010 (2Q10), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker. For the quarter, the total disk storage systems market grew to $6.8 billion in revenues, representing 20.7% growth from the prior year’s second quarter. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reach 3,645 petabytes, growing 54.6% year over year.

“The first half of 2010 showed continued signs of economic recovery in the disk storage systems market,” said Liz Conner, senior research analyst, Storage Systems. “The external disk storage systems market grew 18.6% from the first half of 2009 in terms of factory revenue and 3.0% from the second half of 2009. Although the first half of 2009 was extremely weak due to the economic crisis, the gain from a relatively strong second half of 2009 shows continued customer investment and importance placed in the storage systems market.”

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Worldwide PC Microprocessor Shipments and Revenues Rise 2Q 2010

To understand the Information Economy, you have to put the right numbers into perspective. A major bellwether for both backup and storage industries is the silicon supply chain, because as the amount of compute cycles increases, so does the amount of data needed to be stored and analyzed. What is interesting is that if you look at the latest PC Processor report from IDC, you can see how the market is favoring growth for server and mobile product lines.

For 2Q10, total world wide PC microprocessor unit shipments increased 3.6%, and revenues increased  by 6.2%. Looking deeper into the numbers you will find systems makers bought more higher-priced PC processors for servers and mobile devices, while desktop processors remained flat. IDC is still firm on their forecast of 19.8% growth for worldwide PC processors in 2010. 2011 is not far down the path, but in terms of analysis it remains a wild-card year for sustainable shipment growth.

Though it is also important to point out that 3Q10 looks to be showing weakness. But considering the overall condition of the world wide economy, you have to expect some drawback as we move forward.

Worldwide PC Microprocessor Unit Shipments and Revenues Rise in the Second Quarter Compared to the First Quarter, According to IDC

Worldwide PC Microprocessor Unit Shipments and Revenues Rise in the Second Quarter Compared to the First Quarter, According to IDC

19 Aug 2010
PC processor vendors had a strong first half, but weakness emerges in the supply chain for 3Q10

SAN MATEO, Calif., August 19, 2010 – Worldwide PC microprocessor unit shipments and revenues in the second calendar quarter of 2010 (2Q10) increased 3.6% and 6.2%, respectively, compared to the first quarter of 2010, according to the latest PC processor study from International Data Corporation (IDC).

The average sequential change in unit shipments between a calendar year’s first quarter and its second quarter is an increase of 1.6%. For revenues, the average sequential change is a decrease of -2.8%. So, these increases represent better performance than usual for a second calendar quarter.

“Such a sequential increase in PC processor shipments alone would have been enough to conclude that the first half was strong for the market,” said Shane Rau director of Semiconductors: Personal Computing research at IDC. “However, a modest rise in revenues, too, points directly to a rise in average selling prices. System makers bought more and higher-priced PC processors in 2Q10 than in 1Q10. Digging a little deeper into the numbers shows that they bought more mobile processors and more server processors, while desktop processors remained flat.”

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Brazilian IT Services Market Reaches $8.9 Billion, Demand CAGR of 12%

If you aren’t keeping an eye on Brazil, then you’re not paying good enough attention. The South American economy is readying itself for recovery, as credit lines thaw and market activity refocusses on growth, digital spending and consumption is steadily increasing, expanding the market for IT products and services.

Government and retail consumers primarily drove demand during the first half of 2010, with the business sector expecting to pick up by H210. Additional broadband internet options are also coming online, with Brazil implementing a national wireless initiative to triple internet access by 2014.

Also to note, PC penetration is currently estimated south of 25% and is expected to increase to 36% by 2013. More consumers equals more opportunity for national and international players, leaving every vertical up for grabs. Approximately 400,000 small businesses reside in Brazil, with high demand in retail, finance, and healthcare sectors.

Check Research and Markets for the report:

Brazil Information Technology Q3 2010
Business Monitor International, July 2010, Pages: 63

[...]

Brazilian IT spending is expected to bounce back in 2010, following strong growth in computer sales in the first half of the year. Government and retail demand drove most of the growth, as Brazil’s economy made a robust recovery, while still-sluggish business demand is expected to pick up in H210. Demand for IT products and services is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12% over the forecast period, making Brazil one of the best-performing global IT markets. A National Broadband Plan announced in May 2010 should help to drive future growth in demand for IT products and services.

After 2010, the fundamentals of low computer penetration and growing affordability should keep the market on an upward path. Despite current economic uncertainty, a PC penetration rate of less than 25% indicates plenty of room for market growth. Infrastructure investments following the award of the 2016 Olympic Games to Rio de Janeiro is expected to drive new spending on IT systems and solutions.

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IDC: IT Spending Will Grow 5.2% Over Next 12 Months

The hardware refresh is underway, software sales are picking up, and service backlogs are building; all that from IDC as they publish the latest FutureScan figures. Judging from the overall trend line, buyer intent is steadily increasing at a faster pace than general market indicators. We look to be in solid recovery mode, with fears of a double-dip recession perhaps not in line with real expectations.

Of course, IT is only one aspect of the overall macro picture, but a very vital one. Looking at our own internals we have to agree with IDC’s estimation, as our model has been producing steady growth into 2010; we intend to build on those numbers Q1 and Q2 2011.

IDC FutureScan: A Mid-Summer Bump as Both Indicators Show Improvement

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., August 11, 2010 – The IDC FutureScan indicators for August both showed improvement over July’s results. Combined, the two indicators nearly match IDC’s latest Black Book forecast of 5.2% growth in U.S. IT spending over the next 12 months. In addition, the Buyer Intent indicator has caught up to the U.S. GDP growth forecast of 3%.

“From what we can see at IDC, there is still a major hardware refresh going on, software sales are starting to pick up, and services backlogs are building even if revenue is not,” said Stephen Minton, vice president, Worldwide IT Markets and Strategies at IDC. “Although the market indicators will continue to be challenged by weak revenue and macroeconomic growth, buyer intent remains healthy. Hopefully this will be enough to sustain the long, slow recovery.”

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Cloud Computing to Drive $6.4 Billion in Server Hardware Spending by 2014

Cloud computing is really changing the landscape because it gives executives and managers IT options that scale with complexity, as well as offer flexible pricing models. But let’s not forget, cloud computing is just another term for network computing, or processing information across machines instead of on one local machine. In a lot of ways the entire internet is one machine, with redundancy across the system, and copies of information across wide sets of individual nodes (think of mp3s and movies even).

What we’re watching is the emergence of network computing applications, and that is what is driving the broader narrative. If it’s Amazon’s Elastic Infrastructure, or Google’s App Engine, or XZ Backup’s White Label Backup program (had to drop a plug), then it’s a service which takes advantage of networked machines to do jobs ranging from serving websites, to backing up local data to an offsite and redundant system.

Cloud adoption isn’t just about the industrial infrastructure required to support users from only desktop machines, but increasingly with phones and the emerging tablet market. Verizon’s new Droid is getting great reviews, and has iPhone customers in it’s targets, so healthy competition is revving up. Also wireless networks such as 4g LTE and WiMax are being built as fast as they can get the capital.  In a lot of ways the ground work is being laid, and the future looks bright for the IT sector.

Check out the latest research from IDC for numbers and analysis.

Cloud Computing to Drive $6.4 Billion in Server Hardware Spending by 2014

Cloud Computing to Drive $6.4 Billion in Server Hardware Spending by 2014

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., July 30, 2010 – Cloud computing presents a viable option for IT organizations seeking to reduce the complexity within their IT environments, either by means of converged systems that arrive pre-integrated and ready to use (for private clouds) or systems that are offsite entirely (public cloud). In both scenarios, the pursuit of cloud computing options will drive new spending on server hardware. International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that server hardware revenue for public cloud computing will grow from $582 million in 2009 to $718 million in 2014. Server revenue for the larger private cloud market will grow from $2.6 billion to $5.7 billion in the same time period.

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WSJ: Information Technology Industry Spending Soars

Tech earnings have been rolling in the past few months and things are looking good. On track for growth, leaders in the IT space are on the move, ordering servers, processors and networking equipment to support the worldwide demand for information and expansion of the Digital Universe. Rackspace Hosting is building out, the Planet is adding machines, Intel server chip revenue up 46%, IBM server sales up 30% and Google reporting $476 million in CAPEX. Also cloud computing looks to be defining this sector in the move toward Warehouse-Scale Machines. Manuel D. Medina of Terremark refers to what we’re seeing as a “major tectonic movement.”

There’s still some distance to go, as mobile matures and more meta-apps begin to sift through the explosion of data points currently being uploaded to the cloud, there will be even more pressure on the demand side for elastic infrastructure which can scale all these new services emerging from the fray. Check out the article.

Spending Soars on Internet’s Plumbing

By DON CLARK And BEN WORTHEN

Behind the recovery in business spending is a surge in purchases of the computers that form the backbone of the Internet, as companies scramble to meet growing demand for video and other Web-based services.

The need to reach customers and employees over the Web is driving furious demand for server systems, the machines that power corporate computer rooms.

Many companies are stocking up on new servers, which typically cost a few thousand dollars apiece, to replace older machines with more energy efficient models or systems with more powerful processors.

Also, an increasing number of businesses are turning to outsourcing companies, which manage computer rooms for customers and in many cases are sharply stepping up purchases of servers to keep up with rising demand.

We’ve been buying thousands of computers this year,” says Doug Erwin, chief executive of ThePlanet.com Internet Services Inc., a Houston-based company that runs data centers to offer computing services. ThePlanet says it now owns about 50,000 Dell Inc. servers.

International Business Machines Corp., one of the biggest vendors of servers, said Tuesday that sales of industry-standard servers jumped 30% in the second quarter, after rising 36% in the first quarter.

The buying activity became apparent last week, when Intel Corp. said quarterly revenue from its unit selling server chips rose 42% from a year earlier, while shipments driven by Internet-related companies’ purchases nearly tripled.

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Tape Drive and Media Revenues Decreased by 25% in 2009

2009 was without question a tough year for the global economy, with revenues across the board taking broad hits. Relative to our sector, we have seen a few players in the Backup market withstand substantial markdowns in growth, namely the Tape industry.

Today we would like to make you aware of research we found from the Santa Clara Consulting Group, a firm with more than 25 years of experience in the removable data storage industry. In their report, SCCG found that the Backup tape drive and media sales market for 2009 fell to $1.58 billion, down from $2.10 billion in 2008 – that’s a 25% move downwards. It’s obvious the market is looking for other vendors and technologies to provide data redundancy. We see this as a clear opportunity. You be the judge:

[Source - StorageNewsletter.com] Tape Drive and Media Revenues Decreased by 25% in 2009

According to the Santa Clara Consulting Group
Backup tape drive and media sales represented a $1.58 billion market in 2009. Drives accounted for $629.28 million and media for $955.53 million, according to Back-up Tape Technology Report – 2010 ($6,850) from by Santa Clara Consulting Group. The market for storage hardware was down in the year but had support from LTO 4 drives. Media unit sales were off and revenues were also affected by competitive conditions in the industry.

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Wireless Visualized Across the Urban Landscape

We caught this great video and would like to share it. It’s an awesome visualization of the space taken up by our mobile devices. From RFID, to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, we see how they integrate and overlay across our urban landscape. This project was produced by Timo Arnall, who is also known for other visualizations. Take a look.

Wireless in the world 2 from timo on Vimeo.

[Hat Tip to Infosthetics]

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Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

This animated sequence is a talk by Dan Pink (Wikipedia Google Twitter) discussing human drives and motivations at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (Wikipedia RSA Website). It’s a great all around introduction to some newly minted economic research from the top tier of the profession (MIT, U of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon — sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank), and should be interesting for anyone, not just business folks. I’ll let Dan explain:

Business Continuity/Disaster Data Recovery Market to Reach $39 Billion by 2015

Today we’d like to point you in the direction of tech intelligence firm ABIresearch. Currently the BC/DR market is sustaining $25 billion in economic activity, and is set to experience a CAGR of 10% as we move forward into 2015. Points to keep in mind: federal mandates require financial services and health-care industries to have business continuity and disaster recovery programs; vendors need to minimize complexity, provide broadest possible response. Have a look:

ABIresearch – Business Continuity/Disaster Data Recovery Market

… To compensate for the unexpected and account for the unpreventable, prudent organizations utilize business continuity products and services plans to keep their enterprises up and running in emergencies, and implement disaster recovery plans and programs against the possibility that a computer, server, office or entire building becomes unusable as a result of a catastrophe.

ABI Research forecasts that the global market for business continuity and disaster data recovery solutions will grow from $24.3 billion in 2009 to exceed $39 billion in 2015.

“As a result of their growing reliance on electronic data and the need for backup, storage and security, industries such as financial services and healthcare now operate under federal mandates requiring them to have disaster recovery and business continuity programs in place,” says ABI Research director Larry Fisher, “In many other industries, such programs are not legally required, but savvy companies always prepare for the worst.”

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