IDC Reports Storage Software Sales Decline

Storage software revenue has experienced its first quarterly year-over-year decline in more than five years, according to IDC.

The analysts' Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker showed that the device management, replication and infrastructure categories had the biggest declines.

Symantec was the only vendor to grow revenue year-over-year, increasing 2.5 per cent. Hewlett-Packard's 21.5 per cent drop was the biggest fall, while market leader EMC slipped 14.5 per cent.

Michael Margossian, research analyst, storage software at IDC, said the combination of the normally slow first quarter for most companies with the continued economic climate was displayed in the first quarter's results.

"A majority of companies displayed either negative or very low year-over-year growth," he said.