Microsoft Gaining NAS Market Share

Computerworld is running a story on Microsoft’s recent gains in the Network-Attached Storage (NAS) market. Seems that companies like EMC and Dell are building Windows Server 2003-based systems for small-to-midsize corporations,   which now account for more than 50% of the market.

From the story: "Two years after formally entering the storage market, Microsoft Corp. has emerged as a major and even dominant provider of NAS management software for small-to-midsize business customers."

So how was Microsoft able to accomplish this in a market where security is absolutely paramount? Well, to begin with, Windows Server 2003 is a lot more secure than some media outlets would have you believe. In addition, as the story goes on to say: "just as it did earlier in the application software space, Microsoft has provided application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs) to independent software vendors (ISVs) that include commonly used storage functions such as clustering and snapshots. Using these APIs and SDKs, software vendors can create unique tools that are assured of working with other Windows-based software. "