Data Storage Undergoes Secular Growth at Twice the Rate of the Overall IT Industry: A Wall Street Transcript Interview with Amit Daryanani, Equity Analyst for RBC Capital Markets

67 WALL STREET, New York - February 19, 2013 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Data Hosting Centers and Data Storage Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs and Equity Analysts. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.

Topics covered: Data Hosting Centers - Flash Memory - Cloud Computing Secular Trends - Internet Infrastructure Build - Big Data, PCIe Storage, Cloud Computing and the Virtual Desktop - Data Center REITs - Colocation, Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing - Data Center Expansion -

Companies include: Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ), Dell Inc. (DELL), EMC Corporation (EMC), NetApp, Inc. (NTAP), Apple Inc. (AAPL), International Business Machine (IBM), Amphenol Corporation (APH), QLogic Corp. (QLGC), Jabil Circuit Inc. (JBL), Seagate Technology (STX), Molex Inc. (MOLX), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Dell Inc. (DELL) and many more.

In the following excerpt from the Data Hosting Centers and Data Storage Report, an expert analyst discusses the outlook for the sector for investors:

TWST: Have there been any notable technological innovations or other industry trends that are affecting these companies? How are they adapting?

Mr. Daryanani: The big one I would say, at least in storage, has been the deployment of flash as a new storage medium. The flash-centric storage market is expected to go from probably $2 billion this year to potentially $9 billion to $10 billion in the next four years, so that is a new area of growth.

Depending on how EMC and NetApp can adapt to this market, it could either be a source of further revenue growth or a source of cannibalization for them.

I think flash in storage is going to be a very disruptive force. You're seeing multiple smaller private and public companies - more private, I would say - that are starting to play in this space in an aggressive manner. So that's the one area I would focus on, and say flash is one that could be fairly disruptive.

EMC actually acquired a small company called XtremIO in that space to get their presence established, and NetApp for now seems to be going at it on an organic basis with Project Mars, so I'd say flash is the one trend I would watch for on the storage side.

Beyond that, one of the other things you're seeing, on the server side, that has been disruptive and will continue to be disruptive, is white box OEMs. So the big Web 2.0 companies, the Facebooks (FB) and Amazons (AMZN) of the world, have been and are increasingly using Asian ODM companies to manufacture their servers, rather than going to the traditional IBM, HP, Dell. That certainly has resulted in some large and material challenges for those three server companies in their business lines...

For more of this interview and many others visit the Wall Street Transcript - a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs, portfolio managers and research analysts. This special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.