Network Hardware - Network Storage

Storage has seen a lot of action over the year, with lots of new technologies having been introduced. Possibly that's why we see so many brands making it to the Users' Choice club this year. IBM tops the Users' Choice club in this category in both employee segments. HP is runner up across both segments, but very close on IBM's heels in the 100-499 segment. Quite a few other players have made it to the elite Users' Choie club.

The brand loyalty data is very interesting in the 100-499 employees segment. Most brands did not have 100% loyal customers, but those who were not loyal did not know which other brand to shift to. The winner IBM for instance, had 73% loyal users, but the remaining 27% didn't know which other brand they were likely to shift to. Likewise, runner up HP had 63% loyal users, and remaining 27% unsure of which brand to shift to.

A similar situation was there in the 500+ segment as well.So while the brand loyalties are high in this segment, there are users who're unsure about which other brand to shift to. Maybe it's due to lack of awareness, or maybe moving to a different network storage solution is not an easy decision to take. Possibly network storage vendors need to find out more from their customers about what they really want.

In both employee segments, most existing owners of network storage products gave product reliability as the reason for having chosen their brand. For future purchase also, reason was the same.

For EMC in the 100-499 employees segment, an equal percentage of respondents also gave brand value as the reason they were likely to go with the brand, apart from product reliability.