Backup appliance makers relived the past during the third quarter of 2012 (3Q12), according to new figures from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Purpose Built Backup Appliance Tracker.
The research firm noted that factory revenues in the purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA) market “posted no year-over-year growth” last quarter, essentially a repeat of 2011. The picture was a bit better in the open systems market, which grew at a rate of 6.4 percent (year-over-year) to reach $567.5 million in revenues.
IDC research director Robert Amatruda said that the in grand scheme of things, the backup appliance market’s underwhelming performance was a momentary blip.
“We believe the leveling off of revenue growth in the worldwide PBBA market in the third quarter of 2012 is a short-term phenomenon with customers deferring spending on data protection and recovery products,” said Amatruda in a company statement.
Despite the hiccup, demand for data protection solutions will grow and help set the stage for a backup appliance rebound, predicted Amatruda.
“We remain very upbeat at the long-term growth opportunities for the PBBA market with the underlying customer drivers remaining unchanged. Customers will continue to embrace PBBAs to improve their backup windows and recovery time objectives or modernize their backup infrastructure,” he added.
Total worldwide PBBA factory revenue totaled $655.3 million in 3Q12. Unsurprisingly, EMC led the backup appliance market with a 66.6 percent share of revenues ($436.4 million) during the third quarter.
IBM saw its revenues tumble 42.8 percent in 3Q12; the IT giant was a distant second with 10.8 percent share ($70.6 million). Symantec took third place with 6.8 percent share ($44.7 million). The data protection and security software maker made a big push earlier this year with new self-branded hardware offerings.
Rounding out the top five were HP with 4.5 percent of the market ($29.3 million) and Quantum with 2.8 percent ($18.4 million).
