Andy Monshaw
IBM’s big storage picture
The general manager of IBM Systems
Storage explains a controversial
boast and the way he sees the storage
market shaking out
Andy monshaw, general manager of
IBM Systems Storage, rankled a few jour-
nalists and analysts last summer when
he called a press conference on a busy
Monday morning and basically declared
IBM “king of the world” in the data storage business.
His contention was with three or more drives,
based on a single market- as IDC’s methodology
ing report by IDC’s Dave required, Reinselsaid. How-
Reinsel that melded both ever, the report didn’t differ-
di sk and tape har d ware entiate between internal and
sales into one apples- external disk storage—very
and-oranges-type report, different markets for IBM’s
crowning Big Blue the various competitors.
world’s No. 1 data storage It took a while for sched-
company. In the report, ules to be connected, but
which lumped together e Week Senior Writer Chris top of mind for enterprise functions on a disk. They
total disk and tape stor- P r e i m e s b e r g e r — w h o I T storage managers. want to talk abut continuity
age hardware numbers for wrote a column criticiz- solutions, security, avail-
2006, IDC said IBM earned ing IBM’s actions—finally What were you thinking last ability, retention, policies,
22. 2 percent of combined got the chance to sit down June? The press conference security management for
revenue ($28.6 billion) with Monshaw at e Week’s seemed to be a lot of unneces- an infrastructure—things
over Hewlett-Packard’s San Francisco offices. Pre- sary crowing for a company like that.
as well-respected as IBM. That’s why when we
When we talk about our report our earnings, report
‘[Clients] want to talk about business, we try to define it our progress in the market,
continuity solutions, security, in the way the clients view we talk in a broader sense,
availability, retention, the business—not in a sub- because that’s what our port- segment that we might be folio carries. I think that was
policies ... things like that.’ particularly strong in. In the a point of view that perhaps
conversations we’re having you didn’t share with us.
with clients now, 99.9 per- That was then. Let’s move
20. 9 percent and EMC’s imesberger and Monshaw cent are not about external forward.
13. 2 percent. discussed the report and disks. In fact, extremely
IDC’s report took in its implications, as well as rarely will a client want Will the storage market even-
all spinning-disk servers the storage issues that are to talk about features and tually [CONTINUED ON PAGE 48]
