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INDUSTRY NEWS


23 May 2008

Network storage 'fastest growing home networking category'


Although the home networking market is to enter a period of slower growth, one category which will see increasing demand over the next five years will be network storage, it has been claimed.

According to a report from ABI Research, the value of the network storage market will grow from $400 million (£202 million) worldwide today to over $1.4 billion (£708 million) in 2013.

Michael Wolf, research director at the firm, elaborated: "Network storage will see more consumer pull-based demand in coming years, though we never expect consumer network storage to see the same type of overall market demand as we've seen in the home router and gateway market.

"That being said, we think the overall adoption of consumer network storage will grow significantly from the 10 per cent of home network owners today who use network attached storage."

The report forecast that network storage among consumers will enjoy an annual growth rate of 26 per cent over the next five years, but added that the technology will face stiff competition from USB hard drives and options for 'cloud' based online storage.

According to infrastructure and networking website Techworld.com, the market for enterprise storage is being transformed by virtualisation, and will be similarly affected by utility storage in the future, as IT becomes more dynamic and hosted services become standard.

© 2006 Adfero Ltd.

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