Sexy storage: EMC highlights a quiet boom

Shareholders and - painfully - some of the storage giant's rivals may well think the company is as bullet-proof as its high-end products, especially given some tough times across the industry and a senseless aversion to many high-tech stocks.

So why is this company, along with a few others in the storage game, bucking the downward trend?

On the last occasion silicon.com met up with then EMC CEO Mike Ruettgers (he moved to become chairman on 17 January this year), we asked him about changes during his nine or so years at the helm of the company. Back at the beginning, did he ever think storage would ever become strategic? Did he ever predict it would become, well, sexy?

He said no. It was only with the rise of the internet - unforeseen in the early nineties - that storage vendors, like some networking companies, stepped into the limelight. The web, email, dynamic online databases and eCRM - all these things have brought with them the need for more storage. And EMC has profited from that need - spectacularly so.

The last year brought EMC almost $9bn in revenue, over 30 per cent up on the previous 12 months. That's 20 per cent of the market and - if analysts have got it right - that market will be worth $100bn in a couple of years.

More money is currently spent on storage than servers. It's no surprise that while stalwarts such as Compaq, HP, and Sun - who typically provide the servers EMC products work with - have been tightening their belts, EMC has grown.

Ironically, these companies all have their own, burgeoning storage businesses. Dell and HDS are in the same league.

They too will all do well out of the storage boom, even as the wider industry and economy stumbles. Then, maybe, a few more people will be turned on to storage.