Archived Storage Market Forecast to Grow to $23 Billion by 2010; Interview with Plasmon CEO, Steven Murphy, Part 2 of 2

This blog entry is the second part of a two part interview I conducted with Plasmon's CEO, Steven Murphy. Mr. Murphy previously served as the CEO of Softek and as President of Amdahl Software before that. In early February, I discussed with Mr. Murphy his views about the future of optical in light of the accelerating corporate adoption of disk for more of their data storage needs.

Jerome: How is the role of optical storage changing and remaining relevant in the storage marketplace?

Steven: The global storage market is currently a $45 billion a year industry and it is anticipated to grow to $50 billion a year by 2010 with archived storage forecast to increase from $9 billion in 2007 to $23 billion in 2010. Of the data that is currently stored to disk, 80% of that data is fixed content data that is rarely accessed and can be preserved in archives. We offer companies a third tier of storage that looks and acts like disk, has the properties of tape, and uses policy based software to manage data retention and compliance. Companies are looking very closely at the benefits of the technology. Plasmon archive solutions with UDO meet long term retention requirements at a cost businesses need.

Companies are being pressured to archive and preserve data by two external factors: compliance requirements and energy conservation. In the US, compliance is definitely a bigger issue. Rules like HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and the FRCP (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) need data written to a permanent tier. In Europe, "green" is definitely a bigger factor as companies need to get power permits to plug in new equipment which plays to our strength. Recent industry studies show that green storage architectures are top of mind with IT buyers and companies. Our systems use 15% of the power of disk and the power savings over 10 years will pay for the Plasmon Archive Appliance. Companies don't have to pay a premium for an environmentally responsible solution that meets their needs.

Optical storage has changed dramatically over the years. And now the inflection point in the market will allow technologies like UDO to come of age for enterprise archiving. Data can be rapidly accessed on UDO, and like disk, it meets all of the concerns of long term archiving, including low power consumption, WORM technology, and a 50 year life. Plasmon archive appliances support RAID, scale significantly, and support data classification and retention. We (Plasmon) now offer an Archive Express version of our appliance that meets smaller departmental requirements.

Jerome: In what verticals is UDO most viable and what upside do you see Plasmon solutions having in the near term (0 - 3 years)?

Steven: We are a dominant player in industries such as insurance, medical, mortgage origination, brokerage firms and for telcos that need secure, long term retention of records. Other verticals where we are having success are those that manage a lot of semi-structured data such as email and check processing. We also do substantial government business at the Federal level with Homeland Security.

Jerome: How is UDO going to respond to the encroaching threat of disk over the longer term?

Steven: There are certain things disk does well and certain things that UDO does well that disk cannot do. We see enterprises using a combination of disk and UDO with software providing data management capabilities. Our UDO solutions can do many of the same things as disk for archived data. UDO can randomly access data, resulting in millisecond retrieval times. Some unique characteristics of UDO that almost no other media possesses are that it is bomb-proof, water proof and magnetic proof. These features came in handy after Hurricane Katrina as our clients were able to dry off the optical media, remount the platters in our systems and begin accessing the data. When was the last time someone did that with tape?

Jerome: What specific short term tactical plans do you have for Plasmon?

Steven: We announced on February 7 that we are raising about $20 million to increase our sales presence and put in place a larger customer facing sales and engineering force to do more solution selling. We are also using some of that money to continue to enhance our software. Ultimately, we do not want the conversation to be an either/or conversation about disk or UDO but how well disk and UDO work together with software to provide the secure, compliant archive solution that customers don't have available to them today.

You may contact Mr. Steven Murphy through Plasmon's PR representative, Laura Tankersley at 720-407-6071 or at laura.tankersley@104west.com.