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Substantial Needs in Home Data Protection Trigger Major Storage Business Opportunities, IDC Reveals (8/9/2005)

Consumers are not very different from commercial IT users when it comes to data protection, IDC uncovered in its latest primary research into the home data protection market. They have substantial concerns about possible data loss of their digital information, and believe they should protect their growing catalogs of PC, image, music, and video assets. Fully understanding this need is an emerging business opportunity for commercial storage suppliers.

"The home data protection market is in the pioneering/early-adopter phase," said Robert Gray, vice president, Worldwide Storage Systems research. "It is still early for broadly successful products for consumers' emerging and unique requirements. Further characterization is easily justified to better understand the expanding opportunity."

Among the biggest consumer concerns are the following:

* Malicious acts - hacking, theft, and viruses - no matter what the source of data.

* Losing data stored on the PC, much more than camera images, MP3/iPod music, or TiVo/DVR programs.

IDC's new study, Home Data Protection, 2005, (IDC #33817) sheds light on the extent of concern consumers have about their growing digital data assets and what specific losses concern them. More than 400 consumers in the United States were surveyed. This study describes how concerns vary overall, compared with various data types such as MP3/iPod data and TiVo/DVR data. Recommendations for supplier actions and additional research are included.

www.idc.com