IBM Achieves Top Growth Among Top Three Storage Software Vendors, Outpaces Overall Marketplace for Seventh Consecutive Quarter

IBM (NYSE: IBM) outperformed storage software vendors EMC and Symantec (1) in the third quarter of 2006, according to new market share data released by IDC (2). According to the report, IBM grew storage software revenue 39 percent and was the only vendor among the top three to increase its revenue share, resulting in a year-over-year rise in market share of two and a half points, as reported by IDC.

According to the IDC report, IBM's storage software revenue growth was more than three times greater than the overall storage software marketplace, which was measured at 11 percent year-over-year growth. The IDC report also revealed that IBM is outpacing the market and outperforming EMC and Symantec for the seventh consecutive quarter.

IBM grew in numerous storage software categories, according to the IDC report. Among all the vendors measured by IDC, IBM maintained its leadership position in the Archive and HSM Software segment. As reported by IDC, IBM continued to show the top growth rate of 58 percent with an increase of six points in revenue share year-over-year in the Data Protection and Recovery segment, which includes IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager.

IDC reported that IBM surpassed EMC and Symantec with 31 percent year-over-year revenue share gain in the Storage Infrastructure Software segment, which is driven by IBM's open virtualization software that helps customers manage multi-vendor systems. The IDC report also indicated that IBM grew 29 percent year-over-year in the Storage Management Software segment, which was fueled by growth of IBM's TotalStorage Productivity Center that helps provide customers a single console for managing physical and virtual diverse storage systems.

"With the explosive growth of data, businesses are increasingly looking to storage software to manage data growth, improve application availability and drive down IT costs," said Hershel Harris, VP, IBM Tivoli Storage and Security. "IBM continues to lead over competitors with our comprehensive storage portfolio -- including software, hardware and services -- and our unified, open approach is helping customers minimize the complexity associated with managing multi-vendor systems so that they have access to information on demand."

Building on IBM's strong storage hardware performance, today's announcement highlights IBM's momentum in the storage marketplace. A recent IDC report showed IBM's external disk storage revenue grew faster than the overall storage marketplace for third quarter of 2006, growing revenue 14.3 percent year-to-year, compared to the overall external disk storage marketplace, which grew at 9.9 percent. The IDC report also revealed that IBM increased its revenue share year-over-year and grew revenue faster than Dell, Hitachi, and HP, all of which lost revenue share (3).

For information about IBM and its storage solutions, please visit http://www.ibm.com/storage


1 (1) Note: Symantec is reported as the combined entity of Symantec and

2 (2) Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker Q3 2006.

3 (3) Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker Q3 2006.