The InfoPro's recent survey of 152 storage managers shows increasing frustration with storage vendors. When asked why they picked their current vendors, users cited price, functionality and existing relationship as the top three factors. Yet when asked what features they most wanted from vendors, none of those rose to the top.

Instead, users cited better manageability and interoperability as prime concerns. "This is what people want, but it's not always what people buy," says Ken Male, founder of The InfoPro. "Often people buy based on best cost per megabyte, for example, but they're very frustrated by promises not kept by vendors as far as manageability and interoperability."

As an IT manager at a large telecom company puts it: "We need the vendors to be more collaborative when they are designing the interfaces to their systems. They are afraid they will create a market where storage is a utility, so, they limit interoperability, hoping we'll standardize on one vendor. But that's bad business."

Features users want most from vendors in 2002 and 2003

Source: The InfoPro