World’s leader of storage drives business–Western Digital is known as a trend setter of the storage industry. Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Director, Components Division, India, Middle East & Africa, Western Digital shared as overview about the storage trends in the market.

Edited excerpts:

How is the market evolving in the storage space?

Capacities are continuously increasing. People are saving more data, accessing more data and interestingly sharing more data as compared to last few years.

However, the relevance of data has also increased exponentially. Data is getting saved in the form of memories. Hence, it becomes highly important and critical for it’s users.

What are the new market trends that are driving this space?

The tendency to share the data has become very dynamic. New applications, be it personal or enterprise the need of always connected has become very dynamic. Now, the next level of always connected leads to high amount of data sharing. Secondly, the process of data generation has also become very automated. From surveillance to corporate applications to private cloud storage solutions, the storage requirements are becoming highly dynamic.

 What are key business priorities of Western Digital?

Western Digital understands evolving market trends and also understands that the data has become high value asset for it’s user. We have launched a new campaign by the title of “Every drive has a Purpose”. This campaign is designed considering the fact that data has a different meaning for its users. For typical home users, we save memories, in the form of pictures or movies. This campaign will highlight the fact that every drive comes with a specific purpose or specific reason.

How do you witness Cloud as a trend?

Cloud has become very important trend for the industry. There are various kinds of Cloud environments, depending upon the scale of use. But, the common fact remains that cloud has become a fast growing trend in terms of market acceptance.

Western Digital offers cloud based solutions which allow home users to create their private cloud storage solutions. Since computing devices are growing exponentially, smart phones are growing. Hence the home environment requires a solution which simplifies the storage aspect of data.

What are your observations on evolution of IT channels?

Over a period of time, the penetration of IT has become highly versatile. In addition to this, IT products have become part of life. And, the IT channels have also transformed. Specially for the consumer oriented products, IT channels have become highly versatile. Over last few years, we have witnessed new channel streams entering into the game. For example: stationery shops are selling IT related products. All of this shows the strong consumer demand.