India's SMBs investing in more storage

India's small and medium-sized businesses are buying more storage products to keep up with the growth in data, a market research firm finds.

According to AMI-Partners, SMBs spent US$43.2 million on storage products in 2004, an expenditure that's projected to grow "one and a half times" in 2005.

In 2004, US$26.4 million was spent on direct attached storage (DAS) and US$16.9 million on network storage. Although "DAS has traditionally been the default choice among India's SMBs", the growth in network users, as well as the speed and capacity offered by network storage make it the "preferred" choice over the next few years, according to AMI-Partners in a statement.

The research firm attributed the increase in spending to several factors, including regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which has affected Indian companies that do business with U.S. firms.

Another key reason is the need to better manage the large amounts of data generated from business-to-business electronic transaction and enterprise software applications. Although SMBs in India are only just starting to install enterprise applications, such as customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning, the adoption rate will "surge in the next few years", said Neha Jalan, analyst at AMI-India, in a statement.