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Sands Shift Under NAS Market
Microsoft and others are changing the NAS status quo, says latest B&S Insider report
November 14, 2003
2 Min Read
Over the past few years, EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) and Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP) have been the two superpowers battling for the title of high-end NAS heavyweight champion. Outside of this cold war, there wasn't much activity in the NAS business.
Now dropping into this scene are a number of players that are charging up the NAS market: Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is aggressively pushing to dominate the low end of the market, and about a dozen scrappy startups are challenging the big guys at the top.
The latest Byte and Switch Insider report -- NAS Market Update -- examines major trends across this volatile segment of the storage industry. In addition to analyzing the strategies of the NAS technology leaders, the report examines the effects of recent market-altering trends.
One such development is the move toward NAS gateways and away from standalone systems. A large part of what seems to be a slowdown in NAS sales actually stems from a major shift in how its being sold: Instead of buying the whole NAS enchilada, more customers are opting for only the NAS server to front-end their current SAN storage, according to the Byte and Switch Insider report.
"Without back-end storage being sold as part of the whole NAS equation, the revenue numbers for the market are spiraling down -- a trend that's likely to continue," the report says.Other highlights from the report:
The fiercest fight is in the high-end segment, where at least ten startups are battling EMC and NetApp for market share.
Midtier system demand will be key for market growth, as the next major slice of NAS customers will likely be in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) space.
Microsoft's Windows Storage Server is expected to revitalize the low end of the NAS market.
Public companies analyzed in the 12-page report include: Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL); EMC; Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ); Iomega Corp. (NYSE: IOM); Microsoft; and Network Appliance.
Private companies covered include: BlueArc Corp., Ciprico Inc., Cloverleaf Communications Inc., Isilon Systems, Maximum Throughput Inc. (Max-T), ONStor Inc., Panasas Inc., Pillar Data Systems, Snap Appliance Inc., and Spinnaker Networks Inc. (which NetApp last week said it plans to acquire -- see NetApp Maps NAS Path and NetApp Annexes Spinnaker).
— Todd Spangler, US Editor, Byte and Switch
More information about the current Byte and Switch Insider report, "NAS Market Update", is available here
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