Whee! IBM storage hardware revenues just keep sliding and sliding

IBM's storage hardware revenue decline has continued, according to its 2015 first quarter results. IBM's earnings statement said: "Revenues from System Storage decreased eight per cent (down two per cent, adjusting for currency)." Remember, this is just the storage hardware business, ignoring storage software products, and if …

[SirWired 1]

Keep in mind that for obscure reasons clear only to the IBM bureaucracy, SVC is classified as a "software" product that happens to be sold with some (relatively cheap) hardware. In an SVC order, most of the dollar value is in the software product.

This is contrast to, say, the DS8k or XIV, where the software licenses are explicitly H/W feature codes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm but low storage numbers would tend to indicate that even SVC isn't doing that well given it acts primarily as a pull through product for other IBM storage

[tectraderbanche]

"It looks as if IBM has pretty much given up on its storage hardware, except for the Storwize and FlashSystem and SVC product lines" - that doesn't make sense, most of IBM's storage hardware portfolio IS underpinned by Storwize, FlashSystem and SVC, and DS8K sales did rise to a degree you say. XIV is the other hardware product, and that is specifically the one product which was involved in a new product in the Spectrum Storage announcement (albeit software, Spectrum Accelerate)

I do think it is fair to say that with the Spectrum Storage branding IBM is indeed focusing on Software-Defined-Storage rather than the hardware itself.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's about the software

Hardware is getting cheaper so revenues decline. More and more functionality is being delivered through storage software and that's what customers are buying. Just like SVC as mentioned above, revenue from XIV sales would mostly be from software licensing. Where's the mystery?