Results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Storage Software QView show the worldwide storage software market closed the second quarter 2012 higher than the year ago quarter, but growing at a meager 0.9 percent rate. Revenue during the calendar second quarter of 2012 (2Q12) increased by just 0.9 percent year over year to $3.36 billion. This marks the second consecutive quarter of reduced year-over-year growth for the market and a performance level lower than any time since the fourth quarter of 2009.

"The second quarter storage software results were mixed when viewed by supplier or functional market," said Eric Sheppard, Research Director, Storage Software, IDC. "Indeed, five of the top eight suppliers experienced revenue growth, but this was offset by declines within a few of the market's larger suppliers. Most functional markets showed increased investments, but the increases were far smaller than the market had been experiencing over the past two years. These generally lower results can be partially attributed to suppressed economic growth in Europe, reduced government/education investments, and transitions specific to a few large suppliers."

EMC, IBM, and Symantec remained the top ranking storage software suppliers with 26.4 percent, 14.7 percent, and 14.6 percent market shares, respectively. CommVault and EMC experienced the largest organic growth during the quarter with 21.5 percent and 7.4 percent year over year increases.

Data Protection & Recovery and Archiving Software were once again the two fastest growing market segments with 2.4 percent and 2.2 percent year over year growth rates, respectively, or $1.16 billion and $404 million in total revenues.

Companies with more than 1,000 employees made up the biggest component of the market with $1.5 billion in storage software investments during the quarter, but this represented a decline of 1 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago. Storage software investments made by small and midsized companies (companies with fewer than 500 employees) grew 5.2 percent year over year to $574 million. Spending on storage software by governments and education fell 1.5 percent to $472 million.

IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software QView is a quantitative tool for analysing the global storage software market. This Tracker counts new license and maintenance revenues quarterly and provides data segmentations by vendor, submarket, functional product family, and region.