75% of European businesses believe storage growth will not exceed 30 percent, compared to analyst predictions of 70 percent
Stokes Poges, 13 January 2003 — Europe's businesses are seriously underestimating storage growth, according to new, independent research from Hitachi Data Systems to be released in February. Three-quarters (75 percent) of European businesses believe growth in storage demand will not exceed 30 percent during 2003, which is far below storage demand estimates from industry analysts of 70 percent.
The `Hitachi Data Systems European Storage Index'*, produced from 570 interviews with IT directors across 12 European countries, will show that only 5 percent of European IT directors believe storage demand growth will exceed 75 percent; a predicted growth rate much closer to estimates from both IT analysts and Hitachi Data Systems.
"Storage demand is likely to be much higher than some of our IT experts are forecasting," says John Taffinder, executive vice president EMEA, Hitachi Data Systems. "Storage demand doubles roughly every 16 months. It does not rise smoothly in relation to business performance; it grows at its own rate and we expect storage capacity demand in 2003 to be at least 70 percent. There are a number of critical business reasons for this, in particular the data replication requirements created by business continuity and disaster recovery concerns."
In terms of IT storage investment, the `Hitachi Data Systems European Storage Index' will also reveal that, on average, 36 percent of companies are allocating a higher proportion of their IT budget to storage in 2003 (32 percent of companies with an annual revenue of £50-£250m, 40 percent of companies with an annual revenue is excess of £250m).
"Larger companies, those in a position to dedicate resource to forward planning, are investing a higher proportion of their IT budget in storage," says John Taffinder. "Part of this is simply recognising, and providing for, growing storage requirements while the remainder is investment in consolidation and innovations such as IP storage technologies. The 10 percent of companies that say they are investing `substantially' in storage are being far more realistic than companies that think they can get away with less."
Of comfort to IT directors is that `per megabyte' storage costs drop annually, so even when an organisation's storage investment remains flat, its storage capacity rises disproportionately.
"This trend could explain the surprisingly low level of storage growth that IT directors expect. When companies have got used to gaining additional storage capacity for no extra outlay, it gives them a softened view of just how fast demand actually rises. Unless you pay extra for it, you often tend not to notice it," says John Taffinder.
The `Hitachi Data Systems European Storage Index' is third party research, commissioned and owned by Hitachi Data Systems. Data reproduced from the `Hitachi Data Systems European Storage Index' must be sourced `Hitachi Data Systems European Storage Index'.
Findings are based on 570 IT director interviews, covering Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
The full `Hitachi Data Systems European Storage Index' is due for release in February 2003.
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Committed to helping customers exploit the value of information technology for success in the Internet economy, Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT), is a leading provider of business solutions for the world's most information-intensive corporations. For further information on Hitachi Data Systems, access www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 1999 (ended March 31, 2000) consolidated sales of 8,001 billion yen ($75.5 billion*). The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's Web site at http://www.hitachi.co.jp.
(1) At an exchange rate of 106 yen to the dollar.
Contacts:
Shirley Virando
Media Relations
Hitachi Data Systems
Tel: + 44 (0) 1753 618682
Email: shirley.virando@hds.com
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