EMC

EMC/Dell Alliance Drives Storage Sales

By Bill Snyder
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
9/2/2005 12:01 AM EDT    


The external storage market grew smartly in the second quarter as the partnership of EMC (EMC:NYSE - news - research - Cramer's Take) and Dell (DELL:Nasdaq - news - research - Cramer's Take) accounted for nearly one-third of sales.

According to market research firm IDC, EMC posted revenue of $807 million for external storage products in the quarter, 9.6% greater than in 2004. EMC's market share was 21.2%, followed by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ:NYSE - news - research - Cramer's Take) at 18.8%, which represented a gain of more than 5 points.

H-P's revenue in the quarter was $717 million, a gain of 13.7%.

However, it's worth noting that H-P had the benefit of an easy comparison to 2004, while EMC's comparison was difficult, says IDC analyst Brad Nisbet.

IBM, with a market share of 13.8%, grew its revenue by 13.4% to $527 million.

Fourth-place Dell (DELL:Nasdaq - news - research - Cramer's Take) grew revenue much faster than any of its competitors -- 27% -- but nearly all of that growth was produced by the sale of EMC midrange Clarion products under the Dell label, says Nisbet.

The external storage market is defined as storage systems with at least three disk drives not contained within a server or desktop computer. It grew by 8.6% to $3.8 billion.