“In general it’s a down global economy right now and it’s impossible to think any one industry is not going to suffer,” Duplessie says. “There’s always a worse side. We could be the automotive industry, or housing.”

In a way, the storage industry is plagued by its own success. The cost of disk capacity on a per-terabyte basis is dropping quickly, which is good for customers but can tear into vendor profits.

“Capacity demand hasn’t abated,” Duplessie notes. “The capital cost associated to capacity is dropping faster than the industry is able to make up for shipment wise.”

All the top storage vendors - including EMC, HP, IBM, Dell, Hitachi and Netapp – are posting lower revenue numbers this year than they did in 2008. But the companies’ respective market shares have remained relatively stable.

Obviously, these vendors are competing for a smaller pool of dollars than they were last year, Duplessie notes. “When the whole pie is smaller you need a bigger piece to stay neutral or grow,” he says. “Somebody is going to have to lose for someone else to win.”