The storage market is an intensely competitive environment that rewards those most capable of adapting to changes in customer behavior and buying patterns. It is therefore critical that storage manufacturers, channel partners, component suppliers, and other stakeholders in the market have access to the information needed to recognize market changes in a timely manner. Such data is currently available in IDC's Europe, Middle East and Africa Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker®: Vertical Markets service, which provides quarterly storage tracker data, including vendor shares, by vertical industry and company size. The service helps users (product managers, strategists, solution builders, sales) to create product business plans and decide on alliance areas and marketing spending.

This tracker provides total market size and vendor shares for the following technology areas and segmentations. Measurement for this tracker is in customer revenue.

Technologies and subtechnologies:

• Five external installation environments (DAS, NAS, FC SAN, iSCSI, ESCON SAN)

Segmentations:

• Company size: four company sizes (1–99, 100–499, 500–999, 1,000+)
• Vertical markets: 16 vertical markets
• Quarterly disk storage systems market size
• Quarterly market shares for top vendors
• Spending by vertical industry
• Spending by company size

Standard subscription scope:

• Central and Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Rest of Central and Eastern Europe, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine
• Middle East and Africa: Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Israel, Rest of Middle East, Rest of Africa
• Western Europe: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K.

Expanded country coverage:

• CEE: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia
• MEA: Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar

This tracker is delivered on a quarterly basis through a pivot table query tool sent directly to subscribers. Quarterly data views are updated using the latest IDC research and information from vendor earnings releases and analyst briefings. The delivery schedule for this tracker is as follows:

• New data is delivered 13 weeks after the end of each calendar quarter

IDC's tracker data is developed using a rigorous methodology that includes well-planned and well-coordinated local, regional, and worldwide data cross-checks combined with a proprietary advanced data consolidation and analysis data platform managed by IDC's Worldwide Tracker organization. Data sources used in the process of determining IDC's tracker numbers include, but are not limited to:

• In-country local vendor interviews
• Distribution data feeds
• Worldwide and regional vendor guidance
• ODM data
• In-country local channel partner discussions
• Import records
• Feedback from component suppliers
• Vendor briefings and public financial reports

IDC trackers provide the accurate and timely market size, vendor share, and forecast information you need to identify market and product expansion opportunities, increase revenues, and win market share. IDC's tracker research is a critical input to the planning and monitoring cycles of the business process. Common uses of the tracker data include:

Planning Process

• Regional, state or city-level planning — setting regional, country, state or city-level sales targets based on market opportunity
• Product marketing — creating a product strategy and road map based on currently available product features and expected growth
• Production planning — using customer demand data as an input in the creation of production schedules
• Product portfolio planning — accessing accurate and detailed data as an input into the product development process

Monitoring Process

• Performance measurement — comparing vendor performance on prior fiscal periods
• Competitive analysis — reviewing competitor performance across multiple dimensions: product, features, channel, segment, geography
• Sales forecasting measurement — assessing internal sales forecast versus actual results
• Price benchmarking — comparing vendor versus market pricing data by model
• Marketing communications — using positive results for messaging in the press, at partner events, or in sales collateral