IT Pros Vote 2020 Brand Leaders for Storage

IT Brand Pulse announced the results of 2020 IT pro voting for storage brand leaders.

Once a year the survey asks which vendors are perceived to be the market, price, performance, reliability, innovation, and service and support leader for 14 storage-related product categories.

“This year’s survey results highlight a trend that frustrates technology pioneers,” said Samantha Griffin, manager of brand leader research. “Small companies will develop and bring new technology to market, enjoying their moment in the spotlight before the big guys enter the market to seize brand leadership. In this round of surveys, Dell EMC, Veritas, Microsoft, VMware and NetApp brands displaced the companies that made the distributed database backup, file synch and share, ageless storage, scale-out file and object storage, and storage performance validation markets.”

Survey Highlights

Dell EMC

• Ageless Storage
  Ageless storage has a new leader as IT pros vote Dell EMC the market leader, dethroning former two-time market leader, Pure Storage – this year’s innovation leader. Dell EMC was also named the leader for price, performance, reliability and service an support. NetApp was the runner-up for market leader followed by HPE.
• Enterprise Backup Software and Appliances
  IT pros vote Dell EMC the enterprise backup software and appliances market leader for the third consecutive year, as well as performance and service and support leader. The title for reliability leader was tied between Dell EMC and market leader runner-up, Veritas. Dell EMC found itself in another tie for price leader with Veeam. This later was also voted innovation leader for the fourth year in a row.
• Hybrid (HDD and SSD) NAS Arrays
  Dell EMC controls the board for hybrid (HDD and SSD) NAS arrays being named them market leader for the second year in a row as well as price, performance, reliability, innovation and service and support leader. NetApp was voted second of market, then HPE.
• Hybrid (HDD and SSD) SAN Arrays
  Dell EMC continues to be the front-runner for hybrid (HDD and SSD) SAN arrays as IT pros vote them the market leader for the eighth time as well as price, performance, reliability, innovation and service and support leader. NetApp and HPE remain the second and third place market leaders for another year.
• On-Premises Enterprise Storage as a Service
  It sees a new leader this year as IT pros vote Dell Technologies the market, price and performance leader. Pure Storage, market runner-up, was voted innovation leader for another year. IT pros once more name IBM the service and support leader while also naming them this year’s reliability leader.
• Scale Out File and Object Storage Appliances
  IT pros repeat last year’s votes as they chose Dell EMC the leader across the board in this category with NetApp and IBM rounding out the top 3. Dell EMC has been named market, price, performance, reliability, innovation and service and support leader and for the second year in as many surveys.
• Servers for SDS
  Dell EMC dominated the competition as IT pros voted them the leader in all 6 categories for servers for SDS for the third straight year: market, price, performance, reliability, innovation, and service and support. HPE was voted second for market and Cisco third.
• Unified (SAN/NAS) Disk Arrays
  Dell EMC holds onto all six leadership titles for unified (SAN/NAS) disk arrays for the second year in a row as IT oros once again recognize them as the market, price, performance, reliability, innovation, and service and support leader. NetApp remains the second all-around in this product category while IBM settled for third place market leader.

Veritas: Distributed Database Backup and Recovery
IT pros acknowledge Veritas as the top leader for distributed database backup and recovery, making this their second successive clean sweep in this category. Commvault was voted second in all segments and Talena third for market.

Microsoft:

• Enterprise Archive
  It dominates the competition in the enterprise archive category. IT pros voted Microsoft the market, price, reliability, innovation, and service ans support leader for the second time in as many surveys while also snagging the performance title from last year’s leader, Veritas – this year’s second place market leader. Proofpoint settled for third.
• Enterprise File Synch and Sharing
  IT pros choose Microsoft as the leader in 5 of 6 segments for enterprise file synch and sharing: market, performance, reliability, innovation, and service and support leader. The firm, however, can’t compete when it comes to price. Google continues its reign as price leader for the sixth time in as many surveys. Dropbox was voted all-around third.

Western Digital: Enterprise HDDs
Voting was close for the enterprise HDDs category, but Western Digital came out on top and dethroned former seven-time market leader, Seagate, as IT pros name them the leader across the board picking up titles for market, price, performance, reliability, innovation, and service and support. Seagate was voted second in all segments, trailed by Toshiba.

VMware: Scale Out File and Object Storage Software
In the second installment of this category, it proves to be the clear front-runner here as it continues to gain the majority of IT pros votes for market, price, performance, reliability, innovation, and service and support. Microsoft finished as second market leader, then Red Hat.

NetApp: Storage Performance Validation Software and Appliances
While the top 2 companies of this category were close in all categories, NetApp received the IT pros votes to pull through as the leader across the board. Last year’s leader in all segments except service and support, SolarWinds, now found itself in second for all segments. Virtual Instruments took the third slot for market.

Global IT Pro respondents to recent surveys include: American Airlines – American Express – Adobe Systems – Advocate Health Care – Aetna – AF Group – Air Force Space Command – Allstate – AT&T – BAAQMD – Bank of America – Beckman Coulter – Boeing – Baylor College of Medicine – Bosch – Boston Scientific – Brinker International – CA Department of Insurance – Capital Group – Caesars Entertainment – Celanese Corporation – Citibank – City of Los Angeles – Combined Insurance – Coca-Cola – Colliers – Comcast – Cox Enterprises – CPS Energy – Daiwa Capital Markets – Dana Foundation – Daybreak Game Co. – Disney – DLL Group – Dow Corning Corp – Duke University – Edmunds – Encore Capital Group – EnerCare – Ensco – Exelon Corp. – ExxonMobil – EY – FedEx – First Acceptance Corp. – Four Seasons – Franklin Templeton – General Electric – General Motors – Great-West Life – GWDG – HCSC – Kaiser Permanente – Kingston – LANL – Library of Congress – Lockheed Martin – LRZ – Michael Kors – MIT IS&T – Morgan Stanley – NASA Ames Research Center – NIH – NBC/Universal/Comcast – NCR – Optum – Orbital ATK – Polycom, Inc. – Quicken Loans – Raytheon – Ricoh – Ryanair – Schindler Elevator Corp. Shaw Industries – Siemens Corp. – Snyder’s-Lance – Spectrum Brands – Stanford University – Staples – Starbucks – States of AL CT, LA and MT – Time Warner – TMZ – Torchmark – Tiger Corporation – T-Mobile – UCLA – United Health Group – U.S. Dept. of Labor – U.S. Navy – UPS – Veolia – Verizon – Walmart – Weizmann Institute of Science – West Pharmaceutical Services – Yale – Yazaki.