The need for more storage is growing by leaps and bounds in most organizations today. This is quite clear when we compare last year's votes forfuture likelihood of purchase against this year. Last year, 40% of the respondnets said they were likely to buy a large volume storage solution. This year, the number if 65%. So there is tremendous demand for large volume storage solutions in most enterprises. The storage space is once again dominated by a handful of brands. IBM and HP play the sea-saw battle for the top spot. Last year, IBM was the most future ready brand, while this year, the space has been reserved by HP. Interestingly, HP does have a strong lead over IBM this time.

Let's see what happens next year. EMC/Legato, which was at the third spot last
year has slipped out of the club this time, and Dell has replaced it. At an overall level, all brands have improved their persuasion ratings, but they still need to reach a stage where the likelihood of purchasing them will be higher than their top of mind recall. It doesn't help if lots of users recall a brand, but don't show any intention to buy it. Their brand pull situation remains the same, and all of them are gaining pull, i.e. more switch ins than switch outs. Another good news is that all brands have improved their brand loyalty figures. There is lesser shifting to competing brands as compared to last year. Let's analyze this for each brand that has made it to the club.

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HP has improved its future readiness, making it the winner of Users' Choice award this year. It continues to remain the second most persuasive brand of the lot on a relative scale, but has moved up one notch in brand pull to the number two position. HP enjoys 58% brand loyalty among its existing users, with only 14% likely to switch to competing brands. IBM on the other hand sits at a future readiness index of 58%. It continues to remain the most persuasive brand in large volume storage, like last year. IBM also has the highest brand pull, which is an improvement over last year (when it was number 2). IBM enjoys 58% brand loyalty, which is the same as HP, with 22% of its existing users likely to shift to another brand, and 20% who're not sure which brand to choose.

Dell has a future readiness index of 17% on the relative scale. It's the third most persuasive brand of the lot, which is anyways an improvement over last year when it couldn't even make it to the club. Dell has started gaining pull, but continues to remain at the third spot on the relative scale. Its brand loyalty is slightly lower than that of IBM and HP at 50%. 19% of its existing users said they're likely to switch to other brands, a majority of which is HP. 31% of them are not sure of which brand to shift to.