This IDC study presents a five-year forecast for the storage services market for 2008–2012. IDC estimates 2007 revenue for the worldwide storage services market to be $31.7 billion, forecast to grow to $39.9 billion by 2012.

According to Doug Chandler, program director for Storage Services research at IDC, "The tremendous, ongoing growth in data generation in all regions is fueling spending in all storage market segments, including storage services. Customers need help managing the increasing amount of data and data types that are under their responsibility, as well as making sure that they have a rigorous data protection plan in place. We also see organizations of all sizes realizing that their storage strategies are directly tied to corporate policies regarding data retention, disaster recovery, and litigation risk, as well as regulatory compliance. So storage administrators are looking for help in these areas as well — something that will not let up in the foreseeable future."