This IDC study provides an analysis of Canadian brand perceptions on storage vendors for 2011. Brand awareness was measured, along with perceptions of customers, against 11 criteria used for evaluating vendors when purchasing storage equipment. The customers were also studied in terms of their company size, geographical location in Canada, and industry. The purpose of the study was to discover:

• What criteria customers are using to purchase storage equipment
• How Dell, EMC, HP, HDS, IBM, NetApp, and Oracle-Sun each measures up against these top buying criteria

This is a companion study of two others on server and networking brand perceptions.

"The Canadian storage market will see continued slow growth in the 2012–2016 time frame, yet hardware vendors face greater pressures against profitability in this same period, including lower unit costs for storage and continued forays into the cloud by Canadian organizations. Proper brand management and marketing planning can lead to improved sales execution for vendors: knowing how you are viewed as compared with your competitors, understanding the primary purchase criteria of your target markets, and maintaining a segmented approach to your markets are all key to staying on message." — Dave Pearson, research manager, Infrastructure Solutions Group, IDC Canada