News
Windows NAS Appliances Gain Ground
- By Scott Bekker
- July 15, 2003
Network Attached Storage devices built on Windows are continuing to gain market share, according to research by IDC.
Windows Powered NAS appliances accounted for 41 percent of unit shipments of NAS appliances in the first quarter of 2003. That's up 8 percentage points sequentially from the previous quarter.
In a news release trumpeting the IDC research last week, Microsoft claimed to be gaining significant market share in the small and medium business sector of the NAS market.
"With the new sub-$1,000 Windows Powered NAS appliances, we are continuing to gain ground on our competition in the SMB market as well," Zane Adam, director of product management and marketing in the Enterprise Storage Division at Microsoft, said in a statement.
Microsoft pushed into the NAS appliance market with the release of its Windows 2000 Advanced Server-based Server Appliance Kit. The company recently rechristened the latest version of the kit as the Windows Storage Server 2003. The original kit was also intended for Web appliances, but Microsoft now directs OEMs wanting to build Web appliances to use Windows Server 2003, Web Edition.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.