Storage looks like it could be one sector of the industry that escapes the cutbacks that will be brought on by the global downturn. Whether business is good or bad, companies will still need to store their data somewhere. The midrange is where the most action is happening: customers want technologies traditionally reserved for the higher end in their data centres, and vendors look happy to oblige.

Management and services will be one growth area within the storage market – making it easier to keep a handle on what’s stored – while being more efficient about it will be a big driver as costs and budgets get cut. The other driver for storage will be more virtualisation: CPUs, operating systems, servers and desktops can be virtualised with some ease now, but storage needs more work.