EMC Stresses Disk Backup, Security

EMC officials boasted about the company’s accomplishments and outlined plans for the future at the company’s annual analyst meeting in New York on Thursday.

Among the revelations is that the company plans to announce a continuous data protection (CDP) product in the next couple of weeks, according to EMC Software Group President Dave DeWalt. The company also stressed storage security and resource management, among other plans.

EMC CEO Joe Tucci reaffirmed the company’s 2005 guidance of 17% growth and earnings of 50-51 cents a share, and sales guidance for 2005-2006 was a little better than Wall Street analysts expected. Growth in terabytes shipped will accelerate from about 65% in recent years to more than 70% this year, he said.

The company, which bills itself as an “information infrastructure” provider, has a 19% share of a $51 billion market, Tucci said. The market is expected to grow to $55 billion next year, and EMC’s share to 20%, Tucci said.

Tucci also claimed that EMC passed HP to take the lead in midrange storage sales in the first quarter, on top of its continuing leadership in high-end sales.

The company is in the midst of its “most prolific product rollout ever,” Tucci said. In the last few months, the company has announced new products for its Symmetrix, Celerra, Centera and Clariion lines, and it plans a number of software announcements over the next 6-9 months, he said.

The company’s Invista storage virtualization product will be a big seller by late next year or early 2007, Tucci said. “It’s going to be a home run product for us,” he predicted.

ILM, Security, Disk Backup Loom Large

EMC attributes 95% of its sales to its information lifecycle management (ILM) strategy of intelligence, protection and tiered storage, Tucci said.

He stressed the company’s new focus on security, calling it “not a separate market, but it’s got to permeate everything we do.”

“Customers need end-to-end solutions,” Tucci said, adding that it will take time to develop them. Chief Development Officer Mark Lewis said EMC has formed a dedicated security team to work on the issue.

DeWalt said 80% of the company’s customers are using tiered storage now, and another 40% are implementing ILM for application-specific uses such as e-mail, databases and imaging. The next step will be to offer cross-application tiered storage, he said.

Disk-to-disk backup is an increasingly important part of EMC’s business, DeWalt said in announcing the upcoming CDP product.

Also figuring large in EMC’s plans is its acquisition of network management software maker Smarts. Executive vice president of marketing and development Howard Elias promised new “storage insight” and resource management products by the end of the year.

Back To Enterprise Storage Forum