Outpacing the Storage Slowdown

There has been plenty of discussion during the last week about whether the storage industry is facing a spending slowdown.

Whether you think that all this talk is overblown or not, recent moves from EMC underline the fact that enterprises can no longer be seen as a storage cash cow.

"Who knows what the economy will do? That's still a wild card," said CEO Joe Tucci at the vendor's Innovation Day last week, becoming the latest exec to voice his unease about the economic climate.

The EMC CEO surprised everyone (including his own staff) at the Boston event by divulging the vendor's plans to dive into the consumer, SMB, and Web 2.0 markets.

EMC may be synonymous with enterprise storage and high-end arrays, but with a major question mark hanging over enterprise spending, this is clearly not how Tucci wants the firm to be perceived."When an environment changes, that can hurt you," he said, explaining EMC's decision to broaden its strategy beyond its Symmetrix system in 2002 and get into Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) and virtualization.

EMC is now eyeing markets outside the traditional enterprise space and planning a slew of new products. These include "Hulk" and "Maui," hardware and software offerings aimed at Web 2.0 and utility computing companies; "Mamba," a mysterious SMB product; and "Homestore," a backup device for consumers.

With an estimated 35 million home offices and 75 million consumers within the U.S., "Homestore" opens the door to a massive new market for EMC, which could not be further from its days as a Symmetrix-driven company.

Another firm juggling consumer and enterprise needs is HP, which released its fourth-quarter results earlier this week. Revenues from HP's storage business grew just 7 percent year-over-year, compared to massive 49 percent growth in the vendor's notebook business.

Can Joe Citizen take up the slack left by Mr. Corporate America? Some big vendors clearly think so. While there are some indications that consumer spending is also starting to tighten, the broader home market just might give some storage companies a boost.Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.