Data and Storage Looking Recession Proof

This just jumped into the inbox from iSupply:

El Segundo, Calif., Apr. 23, 2008—How good was the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) market in 2007? So good that:

Worldwide HDD unit shipments grew by a prodigious 18.9 percent for the year, according to iSuppli Corp.

Annual HDD shipments crossed the half-billion-unit shipment threshold for the first time ever

Revenue rose by 4.6 percent

Indeed, 2007 was a year to remember for HDDs, with shipments reaching 516 million units, up from 434 million in 2006. Factory revenue rose to $32.8 billion, up from $31.2 billion in 2006.

Budgets may tighten, IT budgets may face a meat cleaver during the worst of times, but data just keeps growing and there doesn't seem to be anything CIOs or CFOs can do about it except buy more devices that can store more stuff.

HDD vendors seem to understand this. iSupply says its research shows storage vendors seem to have decided not to sacrifice profitability for a few points of market share, so pricing stability could be a key factor moving forward.

UpdateThe VAR Guy disagrees:

Certainly, some segments of the IT industry will hold up better than others during a weak or contracting economy. Software as a service (SaaS) and managed services are two strong areas that come to mind.

However, no segment of the IT market — not a single one — is truly immune to a recession, The VAR Guy insists. Some folks say a recession is actually "good news" for SaaS and managed services, because businesses will want to outsource more of their IT functions to those online partners.

But if a business is tanking — an extreme example: Bear Stearns — all of that outsourcing work goes away completely!

Well, the Bear Stearns IT shop may go away, but you know what doesn't go away? All of that great, valuable, Sarbanes-Oxley-protected data. Not only doesn't that data go away, all of the Bear Stearns customers who go on to other financial concerns, including JP Morgan Chase, will keep producing data. . .