Here is a quote of an insightful comment from this Slashdot discussion:
IDC just released its predictions for 2008 with regards to data storage trends. Its research shows…
If you’ve ever been involved in an IDC, Gartner or whatever marketing discussion, you know that the “research” mainly consists of going from vendor to vendor (data storage vendors in this case) and asking what, in their wildest dreams, would the ideal demand curve look like. Then they charge for actually coming up with some supporting information to meet the vendors’ preferred conclusion, and release the whole thing to consumers in the hopes of stimulating some demand for the paying vendors. Very scientific.