Top V

The leader of the pack!: According to the IDC estimates, Compaq leads the pack in both TB shipments and value terms, in the total storage market, followed by HP, IBM, Sun and Network Appliances, respectively.

Compaq has been on the roll. With a total shipment of 385.17 TB, Compaq is understood to have raked up Rs 216.95 crore in revenue. Agreeing with the IDC’s estimates, Owais Khan, business manager, enterprise storage, Compaq India, explains, "Our main focus was enterprise. And that continues to be so. However, we are finding that more and more SMBs are coming up with requirements that need NAS or entry-level SANs, in addition to tape restore automation solutions. All three solutions from Compaq, today, start at under Rs 10 lakh and are therefore, suitable for SMB requirements too".

HP registered total sales worth Rs 134.3 crore in the business and accounted for 22.1 percent of market share by value. "HP offers end-to-end storage solutions. Today’s high-end storage does not provide only hardware (high-end tape libraries, virtualization in disk arrays, SAN switches, FC connectivity, no single point of failure disk arrays) but a host of software for managing storage. You need solutions for optimizing storage, storage builder, load balancing, integrating with network management, zero downtime/serverless backup, LUN(Logical Units) management, etc".

IBM, according to IDC, is the third largest vendor with total TB shipment of 109.31 TB of storage and Rs 89.33 crore. IBM is still in the process of evaluating its data, nonetheless, according to Basu Hurkadli, country manager, system sales, IBM India Ltd, "Our storage strategy is channel-driven. Worldwide and in India, a conscious effort is being made to work closely with IBM’s channel partners to provide total storage solutions. Periodic hands-on training programs, complete with IBM certification, are conducted to educate channel partners on IBM’s products and technology offerings in this space. IBM India’s channel partners have invested in IBM SAN solution centers, currently in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore".

Sun is the fourth largest vendor with total shipment of 92.65 TB and with revenue of Rs 78.39 crore, as reported by IDC. Without commenting on the IDC estimates, B Chandrasekhar, regional storage product manager, network storage, Sun Microsystems India Pvt Ltd, added, "Our strategy was being focused. Our storage solutions are through channels with strategic push by Sun for networked storage—a massively scalable storage solution with performance on pay ‘As You Need Basis’, with affordable upfront cost.

Network Appliance was at the bottom of the Top Five with total storage shipment of 83.28 TB and revenue of Rs 38.29 crore, according to IDC. Says George Thomas, country manager, Network Appliance, India, "The customer is looking for a solution and it does not matter whether it is NAS or SAN. Network Appliance has more than 100 installations of its filers in India. Our major customers are Texas Instruments, Rediff, Times Internet and Cadence, to name a few. A complete storage solution includes primary storage, tape libraries, storage management software, etc. We partner with the industry leaders to deliver a complete solution".