IDC

Sun makes storage market gains

Judi Hasson — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:22:43 -0400

Sun Microsystems has moved ahead of international competitors like Hitachi Data Systems and Fujitsu with its new Open Storage systems, according to IDC's Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker. The report said Sun moved into fifth place on the world chart with $494 million in sales, or 7 percent of the market. Sun recorded a 29.2 percent year-over-year increase in factory revenue for the second quarter, far outperforming the overall market, eWeek.com reported.

The report also noted that the Sun strategy is to keep increasing the number of its open-source oriented OpenSolaris/Zettabyte File System storage offerings to help fuel enterprise interest. Hewlett Packard remained the revenue leader with $1.25 billion in quarterly sales and control of 20.3 percent of the market. IBM was second with a 19.1 percent market share for $1.23 billion.

"Despite concerns about a 2008 slowdown in IT spending, external disk storage systems spending experienced strong growth in the first half of 2008," Natalya Yezhkova, a research manager for Storage Systems at IDC said in a statement.

For more on storage:
- see this eWeek.com article

Cost of operating data centers rises

Judi Hasson — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:21:43 -0400

The energy costs of operating data centers are high, and on the rise. IDC forecasts that IT spending required just to cool and power spinning disk drives will reach $1.8 billion by the end of this year, and over $2 billion in 2009. IDC also estimated that more than 49 million hard disk drives in external storage arrays were in use by businesses around the world last year, with corporate customers boosting storage capacity by an aggregate rate of 50 percent a year. One solution to this vexing problem may be NAND flash-based solid-state storage that offers a power-saving substitute over physical spinning drives. Hewlett-Packard Co., Sun Microsystems Inc. and EMC Corp. all have plans to add solid-state across their server portfolios.

For more on this new option:
- check out this Computerworld.com article

IT execs overconfident about e-discovery

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:59:59 -0400

A new research report has found that IT executives are confident they can respond to e-discovery litigation requests given their significant investments in records management, archiving and information retention. But the report by IDC suggested that the CIOs may need to take another look, and may not be as prepared as they think.

The survey found organizations lacking in standardized policies and IT practices for activities related to the identification, preservation and collection of potentially responsive data.

For more detail on e-discovery gaps:
- see this CIO.com article

'Hyperconnected' users growing

Thu, 15 May 2008 06:59:58 -0400

A new wave of information workers are using multiple devices and applications, meaning that CIOs must begin making plans to accommodate this next-generation workforce. A worldwide study done for Nortel by IDC, covering nearly 2,400 working adults in 17 countries, found that 16 percent were "hyperconnected" users--those using at least seven devices and nine applications. This included use of gadgets ranging from phones to laptops to PDAs and even car-based systems.

Vito Mabrucco, senior vice president at IDC Canada, said the increasing demand for connectivity and applications, as well as the blurring of personal and business use of technology, is expected to tax telecommunications networks, broadband networks, and high-speed networks.

For more on this new kind of workplace:
- see this infoworld.com article

For more tech articles from the FierceCIO network:
> Gates: Windows 7 will be more efficient. Article
> Office for Mac achieves record sales. Article
> The search for the best 3G network. Article

Growth in Data center outsourcing

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:59:58 -0400

If your data center processing needs are growing and you don't have the capacity to handle it, there are options available for CIOs. Many growing IT shops, short on servers, are now outsourcing their data center operations to Web-hosting companies. Andy Maag, vice president of engineering at Bazaarvoice, said his company could have tried to expand its data center capacity but found it very difficult to keep up with the growth. "If you have to grow your capacity very quickly, you can run into physical space constraints, power constraints and environmental constraints like air conditioning," Maag said. "When you're a fast-growing business, that can present problems."

Some booming businesses like Bazaarvoice are turning to web-hosting companies for help including Rackspace, Savvis, AT&T, Terramark and IBM to handle their data center operations. These companies are growing at an average of 15 percent per year, according to market research firm IDC, and need complex hosting services. Others looking to outsourcing are firms with unpredictable growth and eCommerce companies with seasonal spurts in traffic.

To read more on this hot, new trend:
- Check out this Computerworld article

CIOs can help a manager shine

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:59:56 -0400

While a company's managers may not always be tech savvy, they would be wise to embrace the expertise of a CIO, according to research firm IDC. In today's topsy-turvy and competitive world, a manager can tap into a CIO's expertise and realize many gains. "While managers may indeed be successful, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) can help them improve on success--which is one of the exciting opportunities for a CIO," IDC senior vice-president Frank Gens said.

But to do that, CIOs need credibility as executives who understand business issues and the marketplace. The smart manager must realize that complicated issues such as productivity, overhead costs and employee retention all are areas where a CIO's expertise may be used to harness a company's best performance. And if you are manager working in a silo, it might be time to build a bridge to the very experts who can help you shine at your job.

To read more on helping managers succeed:
- see this gulfnews.com article

The growth of the digital world

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:59:59 -0400

The digital world is growing so fast that by 2011 it will be 10 times what it was in 2006, according to a new report by IDC. The report, called The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe, pointed to faster growth in digital cameras, digital-TV shipments and a better understanding of information replication. The estimation is something that IT organizations will have to pay attention to, according to the report. IDC said businesses will have to deal with creating, storing, management, retention and disposal of data.

The study said businesses will have to deal with a host of other issues, including:

- Policies for information governance, retention and access.
- New tools for data storage, database analysis and security.
- Increased use of RFID tags to find information.

"What's interesting about the unfamiliar and emerging data sources is how difficult they will be to manage and leverage successfully," Charles King, principal analyst for Pund-IT, told CIO Today.

For more on the growing digital world:
- Check out this CIO Today article

Protect your system with archiving software

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:59:58 -0500

There's a growing demand for archiving software among CIOs who want to protect their systems from incidents involving disaster recovery and business continuity, according to market research firm IDC, which last week published its Quarterly Storage Software Tracker report. The data tells it all. Worldwide revenues from storage software license and maintenance fees were up nearly $3 billion during the third quarter of 2007, an increase of nearly 10 percent from the same period in 2006.

"Overall market growth was driven by strong performance in both the archiving and data protection and recovery markets," according to Michael Margossian, research analyst, Storage Software at IDC. "Customer demand for storage replication seems to be cooling off, while the need for archiving appears to be picking up." There were plenty of reasons for the growth of the archiving market, including regulatory compliance, overall storage needs and eDiscovery. Check out the top five vendors worldwide and their share of this growing market in this IDG article on the IDC survey.

For more on this market trend:
- See this IDG Article

Global IT spending expected to drop in '08

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 06:59:59 -0500

Global IT spending is expected to slow down in 2008, according to a new report from research firm IDC. The report says that total worldwide IT spending will grow from 5.5 percent to 6 percent, down from 6.9 percent in 2007. And there are plenty of reasons for the slowdown, including open development and using just about everything as a service. "In 2008, the era of experimentation will end as industry leaders get serious about transforming their products and services to take advantage of--and meet the challenges posed by--these new technologies and business models," said Frank Gens, IDC's senior vice president of research.

The IDC report suggests that software companies will focus more heavily on developing markets, redoubling their efforts in the so-called "BRIC" nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China), as well as nine other emerging areas with nascent tech economies. Another change coming down the road is the adoption of online delivery models for applications. That market is one of the sectors expected to grow substantially, the report says. So if you are expecting the status quo, hold that thought. Every CIO should stay alert for change because it's in the wind.

For more on the temperature of the global IT market:
- Check out this CIOUpdate Article

Fix your security before it breaks

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:00:00 -0500

If you break it, you own it. That's an old saying for anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time. For CIOs, the trick is to take the lead in dealing with security issues, fixing them before they break. There is no lack of products out there with which to assess a risk and prevent it. But where do you go? And how do you pick the best product for your firm? "We're finding security is the forgotten stepchild in the virtualization build-out," said Stephen Elliott, IDC's research director for enterprise systems management software. Is that true for your firm? Have you figured out the cost of putting up the best security or are you still in a never-never land of keeping your fingers crossed that you will never be attacked? "That's scary when you think about the number of production-level VMs," Elliott said. In 2008, CIOs will have to find a new balance to their work, resetting their priorities and making sure their systems are protected from every kind of attack even before they work on operational excellence. -Judi