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| . |
...Later:-
In
March 2006 -
Samsung started
shipping 1.8" 32GB flash SSD drives.
Quoting projections from
Web-Feet Research,
Samsung said it expected that the SSD market would double to $1.3 billion in
2007 and reach $4.5 billion by 2010. | |
| . |
Later...
the
first part of this market prediction below came true in October 2004 - when Sun
Microsystems started reselling solid state disks from
Texas Memory Systems.
The
Transition Phase to a Disruptive Market in Solid State Disks
It's
users who create disruptive markets, not product marketers. If enough users
think that a new technology will fly - it will take off. Conversely there are
many new products which marketers think are a good idea, but which fail in the
market.
The high interest in SSDs on STORAGEsearch shows that a
significant number of users (over 100,000) have been looking at the idea with
interest.
The transition phase to a mass market will happen something
like this...
Applications engineers in large server companies like
Sun, HP and IBM will work with 3rd party SSD vendors in niche markets. Product
marketers within the server companies will learn about the new technology and
make it a standard "special" supported feature. Competitive pressure
to improve the benchmark ratings of 64 bit multi processor chip based servers
(like the SPARC IV) which have hit glass ceilings on Gigahertz bus rates will
lead to an oem including SSDs in their basic server offering. This will double
the published benchmark performance.
Within 3 months - every major
server manufacturer will do the same. That's when the acquisitions and serious
partnering with SSD companies will begin and we will switch to a mass market.
Initially server companies will badge engineer SSDs. Eventually technology
licensing and acquisition will mean that most will make their own. There will
still be a non captive market for SSD companies as upgrades and working with
smaller sever oems just as there is today with RAID controllers.
The
process could be accelerated by flash semiconductor companies who will see SSD
revenue as a way to make up for not having the processor crown jewels (that is
not being Intel.)
This is similar to what happened with RAID systems
which started out as niche add-ons in the late 1980s and took nearly a decade to
become commonplace. The 2000-2003 US IT recession meant that users didn't go
out and buy many systems that they didn't absolutely need - but the absence of a
large visible market shouldn't be confused with indifference. many technologies
including Disk to disk backup, iSCSI and SSDs were being evaluated or
considered during this period and will change the landscape of the storage
market in teh recovery. See article:-
Storage Winners and Losers from the 2000-2003 IT Recession.
One
factor which SSD product marketers have to remember is that users behave in a
way which reduces their risk. Even if they like your technology they may
not like the idea of buying it from your company. But they will feel more
comfortable about buying your product if it's supplied by a company they trust -
like a reseller they know - which is selling the product supported by the
company which makes the user's server. | |
| . |
Winners
and Losers from a $10 Billion SSD Market?
It's hard predicting
which companies will be the biggest winners and losers, when new technology
disrupts high tech markets.
Currently most SSD companies are
benefitting from these market trends, but many lack the marketing skills
required to take advantage of a much bigger market:- development of software
tools, VAR channels, branding etc. Some pure technology companies can only hope
they get acquired, by the big server companies.
Intel will lose server
CPU sales, compared to today's market patterns. But servers are only a small
percentage of Intel's overall processor sales. On the plus side, Intel could
stand to gain much more revenue from increased flash memory sales.
Microsoft,
Oracle and other enterprise software companies will lose the most. Because users
will deploy a lower number of server processors than they do today. About half
the number of processors could perform the same tasks in a typical organization,
with the benefit of SSD and other network accelerator technology. | | |
Historical Data Which
Supports the SSD Market Size Model
STORAGEsearch Reader
Pageviews
There has been significant growth in reader interest in
solid state disks. In Q1 2001 - SSDs were the 18th most popular subject. In Q1
2002 - SSDs were #4. In Q1 2003 - SSDs were #2. In Q2 2003 - SSDs were #1.
That means more readers than viewed our
NAS page for example.
Clearly something has been happening in the market to accelerate reader
interest. That was the first clue.
Our readership tracks the
interests of hundreds of thousands of people who looks for storage focused
content on the web. Our 11 year history as an IT directory publisher, strongly
indicates that changing reader interest in subjects is a strong predictor of
future market growth. It can take several quarters for that revenue to occur,
and upto a year before it is reported by market research organizations which
track revenue. But during 8 years of tracking these trends online in the
Sun and
storage markets, we know that the
effects are real.
As a sanity check - consider that
Serial ATA was the #1
product category on STORAGEsearch in the 2nd half of 2002 - clearly predicting
future interest in a market, which at that stage didn't have many real shippable
products. It's the changes in these rankings which are important. Some
categories stay in the top 5 year after year. But when products get into the top
5 from relative obscurity, that signals volume changes are about to happen.
other Market Researchers
In a
May
2003 press release, Gartner said the removable flash SSD market was worth
$2Billion in 2002 and grew 73%. That's only part of the SSD market and excludes
DRAM based products.
SSD Manufacturers
Many SSD companies have disclosed
to us that their own revenue growth has been significantly higher than 100%
year on year.
Looking Ahead - Market Trends - Which Supports the SSD Market
Size Model
Our analysis at STORAGEsearch.com is that the correct
market size for SSDs (used as server accelerators) is on the order of $10
billion in 2007 The factors which will drive this are as follows
1 - users in the early adopter category have discovered that within
their IT budgets they can increase application performance at lower cost by
switching spend away from server CPUs over to SSD accelerators.
For
example customers looking to upgrade heavily utilised 60 CPU Sun systems can
choose between doubling CPUs by buying new servers or spending about 25% of that
server cost on SSDs. Other users, lower down the scale, have been reported as
taking servers out of use to reduce software costs, and using SSDs to make up
the performance difference. Therefore the SSD accelerator market should be
viewed as a replacement for part of the server CPU market. Not as a
percentage of storage spend.
2 - Sun and others in the 64 bit server market have already seen
decreasing returns in server performance with higher GHz CPUs. This trend will
get worse when new generation Intel and Sun processors, which use more CPUs per
chip come into mid range products. Future growth in server performance will not
be possible unless server OEMs start to architect their systems to include SSDs
as a standard option.
3 - Historically the SSD market has been limited by poor software
tools. Users were unable to get promised speedups without extensive technical
knowledge. Recent software tools from Imperial, BiTMICRO and others hold the
promise that users or VARs can tune their own systems. Therefore sales ramps
will no longer be limited by application engineer headcounts in the SSD
companies.
4 - upto Q2 2003, the major server oems, IBM, HP, Dell and Sun have
not been involved in any significant way in the SSD market. But when markets
reach a critical size, the big companies will step in to protect declining
server revenues. This will most likely start with the acquisition of SSD
companies and OEM badge agreements. The effect will be that SSD technology
will be marketed by companies which are more familiar to users than the SSD
pioneers. These factors will accelerate the market growth and channels to market
for SSD technology.
Conclusion
Extrapolating from the current market
size, and with the potential to replace other products (such as server CPUs and
application software licensing), it is reasonable to assume that the trends now
seen in the SSD industry are part of a disruptive change in the computer market
which could propel Solid State Disks into a $10 Billion Market in 2007. |
 |
| Predicting
the Next 7 Years in Storage? |
| Commemorating
the 7th anniversary of
STORAGEsearch.com this article
recaps the 3 most significant changes which have taken place in the storage
market in the past 7 years. |
 | |
We've
reported on every widget and fidget in storage technology and every nibble
and wriggle in the storage market from every company. But 3 trends stand out
clearly.
That was the easy part.
As you know STORAGEsearch
regularly predicts storage market winners and losers in specific segments
varying from 3 to 10 years in advance. The success of those past predictions
and their popularity gave us the confidence to predict the 3 biggest changes
in the next 7 years. This should help you make your strategic plans and
avoid future shock. ...read
the article | |
