"When people are starting to try to find information, they are finding that it is very challenging," said Sharun. "The vast amount of information and the quickness in terms of the growth of that information often results in people storing everything then trying to look for it."

And while IT spending is tight right now, Sharun said managing information is part of a larger-scale strategic plan for customers. During assessments of customers' current data, he said an average of 68 per cent of data has not been accessed within a year, "yet it's occupying space on their most costly storage devices being backed up daily ... that's a huge cost bearing on companies."

Sharun said the area of content management complements the further development of EMC's Documentum suite, acquired in 2003.

But Pearson noted that the topic of storage concerns not just the raw data, but issues of security, compliance and data classification that are important as well. "Depending on where you are in your organization, it could be any of these factors, but they all revolve around storage that will by tying up your time and money," he said.