This IDC study provides a sizing of the worldwide storage software market in 2011 and a 2012–2016 forecast.

"Overarching IT and industry trends such as cloud, convergence, big data, and mobility are having a profound impact on how infrastructure and specifically storage is purchased and consumed in today's datacenters and are impacting how firms protect and manage their data and information," said Eric Sheppard, research director at IDC. "Storage software spending remains closely tied to a firm's investment in underlying storage architecture, current capacity, and anticipated data growth. Worldwide spending on storage software increased 9.8% in 2011, representing an incremental spend of approximately $1.2 billion over 2010. The storage software market is expected to grow at a 5.9% compound annual growth rate over the next five years, reaching annual spending of over $18 billion by 2016."