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Storage: IT users' willingness to switch becomes transparent

Waghäusel, 28 November 2011
Strong growth in the German storage solution market is leading to greater consolidation on the provider side. At the same time, IT users are all too ready to change manufacturers. Starting immediately, information service provider, ama, will be publishing monthly market analyses to make the ICT market more transparent.

ama has been providing ICT providers with market data on installed hard and software for around 20 years based on the profile data of 43,000 information and communications technology infrastructures of German user companies. Now, this data will be used for publishing analyses on switchovers to different manufacturers.

ama is one of the few analysts that does not calculate or estimate the market share of ICT manufacturers on percentage of sales, but verifies this information directly with IT users in interviews on a regular basis. This allows the switching fluctuation between the products of different manufacturers to be followed in detail. In addition to information on market share and switchover to other manufacturers across industries, it also possible to get reports according to industry, operational size or German federal state.

In mid-November 2011, ama published the first analysis of this kind on the storage market in Germany. Between January and September 2011, the information service provider questioned around 2,200 IT decision makers in user companies in different sectors, as well as government agencies, on newly installed storage systems and their manufacturers.

The answers that the IT supervisors provided showed that user companies are very willing to change. Of the 502 storage systems installed during the research period, new manufacturers accounted for almost two thirds (362). The majority of those who switched manufacturers went with established manufacturers, like HP, NetApp or IBM, thereby leaving smaller IT providers at a disadvantage.

Axel Hegel, ama partner and CEO comments: "Based on the current strong growth in the storage market in Germany, the insights gained from the analysis lead to the conclusion that this market segment of the IT sector is highly competitive and is subject to a strong consolidation process."

The findings have been summarised in a whitepaper, which can be requested for free in PDF format at wp@ama-adress.de or http://www.ama-adress.de/whitepaper-anfordern. The next ama analysis on PBX telephone installations will be published in January 2012.