Market Report Confirms BakBone's Leadership in Linux Backup and Recovery Software with a Ten Times Lead over the Nearest Competitor

BakBone Software, a global provider of heterogeneous integrated data protection solutions, announced today that it has maintained its position as the leading supplier of Linux backup and archive software in Japan in 2005, according to research from leading IT market research and advisory firm IDC Japan in the Japan Storage Software 2006-2010 Forecast and 2005 Vendor Shares (J6030112). Japanese customers continue to select BakBone's NetVault: Backup software to protect, recover and archive their data, which is underscored by the latest Japan market share results released by IDC Japan. For the fourth consecutive year, BakBone has maintained its leadership position in the Linux backup and archive market with 70 percent revenue share, compared to 7.3 percent for its nearest competitor for 2005.

"IDC's report suggests the appeal BakBone's heterogeneous data protection technologies have in the Japanese market as our customers look to reduce the complexity of managing storage environments and focus on achieving their business goals," said Okoshi Daizo, BakBone's vice president and general manager, Japan. "The very strength of our leadership in Linux is fueled by our ability to offer customers of all sizes integrated, heterogeneous software solutions, including backup and replication, which in combination reduce storage management costs and complexity, thereby mitigating risk."

According to IDC, storage software and in particular backup/archive software, which represents 38.5 percent of overall storage software revenues in 2005, continues to assume a prominent role in IT, driven by the need for increased data protection reliability and reduced storage management load. The report also cites continued growth in the overall Japan storage market, as well as market shifts driven by environmental changes, such as operating system deployments. As Japanese organizations continue to embrace Linux, Linux-based storage software revenues are expected to grow by 19.8 percent in 2006.

BakBone is uniquely positioned, offering the broadest Linux support in the storage management market and delivering integrated open standards-based data protection functionality across its entire data protection product line. In addition to continued leadership in the Linux backup and archive market, BakBone is witnessing the adoption of its newly released storage resource management (SRM) and storage replication software especially for Linux.