The global storage software market grew by 11.2 per cent year over year to $2.4bn in the fourth quarter of 2005, marking nine consecutive quarters of double-digit year-over-year growth, new research has reported.

According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker, storage software revenues totalled $8.9bn for the full year 2005, injecting nearly $1bn of new revenue into the marketplace and growing 12.6 per cent year over year.

In the fourth quarter of 2005, the storage replication market posted the largest gain at 21.7 per cent year-over-year growth, while the back-up and archive and storage resource management software markets continued to represent the largest storage software markets, each representing a third of the market.

"The storage software market continues to exhibit steady growth, particularly in the replication, backup and archive segments, driven by customer requirements to protect and secure information in an increasingly complex IT environment," said Rhoda Phillips, research manager for storage software at IDC.

"This demand is in response to the growth of information and the impact of the requirements to have more information online with greater protection throughout the entire business cycle."

EMC led the overall market with 29.2 per cent revenue share in the fourth quarter of 2005. Symantec took the second position with 19.7 per cent, while IBM finished in the third position with 11.5 per cent, posting a strong result of 32.6 per cent year-over-year growth.

Network Appliance and HP once again rounded the top five in a statistical tie with 6.7 per cent and 6.5 per cent revenue share respectively.

Network Appliance and IBM posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth among the top five vendors at 41.3 per cent and 32.6 per cent respectively.

For the full year, EMC maintained its lead in the storage software market with 29.7 per cent revenue share, followed by Symantec and IBM with 20.3 per cent and 10.5 per cent respectively.

Network Appliance and HP again rounded out the top five in a statistical tie with 6.6 per cent and 6.5 per cent respectively.

Among the top five vendors, Network Appliance and IBM posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth during 2005, with 45.4 per cent and 26.8 per cent growth respectively.