NetApp hails mid-market success
Storage vendor claims its move downstream has paid dividends
NetApp has credited its move into the mid-market with helping it erode its rivals' share of the storage market.
The vendor has introduced a series of products and partner initiatives over the past two years to shed its enterprise-only image.
Speaking exclusively to ChannelWeb, Julie Parrish (pictured), vice president of global partner sales at NetApp, said: "When we were looking at our revenue streams a few years ago, we realised that we could capture more market share if we did a really great job at marketing NetApp to the mid-market.
"This is not a new market for us, but we have made a real effort to make it one that is easier for our partners to sell into," she added.
To this end, the company launched a market-specific recruitment drive and set about simplifying its product and pricing information to make the products more appealing to mid-market companies.
"We started a cross-company initiative that looks at every element required for partners to be successful," explained Parrish.
"It covered pricing and product configuration as well as looking at how partners get information to their customers about NetApp."
Parrish said the initiatives have now resulted in the bulk of the company's new account wins originating in the mid-market.
"For quite some time our mid-size enterprise revenues accounted for around 25 to 30 per cent of our total business. Now, in Europe, we have grown that to 35 to 40 per cent," said Parrish.
NetApp's mid-market efforts have also enabled the firm to eat into HP and Dell's share of the storage market, she added. "We are very pleased with the success we've had so far, as we are gaining share from HP and Dell and are focused on doing everything we can to ensure that continues."
Figures released this month by Gartner showed NetApp was EMEA's fastest-growing storage vendor in 2010, seeing sales grow 36.4 per cent annually to $680m. Its 11.6 per cent market share was up about two points on last year, which closes the gap on market leaders EMC, IBM and HP.
The growth has also been helped by NetApp's decision to partner with VMware and Cisco to build a virtual datacentre stack, claims Parrish, rather than go it alone.
"It is our belief that customers prefer the best- of-breed stack approach versus buying everything from an HP or a Dell. That is being borne out in market share numbers and in year-on-year growth," she said.
Neill Burton, datacentre solutions director at NetApp partner Computacenter, said end user interest in both the tri- and single-vendor approach to virtual datacentres is
building.
"Every vendor will tell you that their approach to virtualisation is the best one," said Burton. "Some customers will go down the all-in-one route because of ease and others will favour best of breed because they do not want to put everything in the hands of one vendor."