• Knowledge of risk reducing concepts dwarfs cost saving practices
• Financial pressure top of business agenda

London, 29 April, 2009: A survey* commissioned by NetApp has revealed that UK business leaders are in the dark about how to reduce business costs through technology, focusing instead on managing security risks through IT.

Despite the fact that 59% of Britain’s ‘Captains of Industry’ see the current financial crisis as the most critical issue facing Britain, 41% do not feel confident that they know enough about technology to be able to evaluate the options available to improve their business performance.

When questioned about their understanding of IT’s ability to support the business, 74% of board-level respondents claimed to understand data protection and recovery, with 62% saying the same about data loss and security. In contrast, only 25% of respondents claimed knowledge of virtualisation. NetApp has just announced a guarantee that they will increase companies’ storage capacity by 35% when they purchase a new V-Series system, hence vastly reducing associated costs.** The study was carried out as part of NetApp’s commitment to enabling customer breakthroughs and delivering an outstanding customer experience.

In response to the survey, Nick Thurlow, VP Sales, EMEA, NetApp said; “The findings of this survey would suggest that many business leaders are focused primarily on mitigating risk with technology. If this is the only focus then the strategic benefits and competitive advantage that technologies such as virtualisation can offer might be overlooked. As the economic climate changes and the pressures facing business leaders evolve, new solutions become more relevant to board level directors. There is an opportunity here for those firms that can reduce their operating costs quickly by adopting virtualised data management environments.”

Full details of the report’s findings are available on request.

* The Survey of Britain’s Captains of Industry canvassed the opinions of board level directors of FTSE 500 firms, top 500 industrial firms by turnover and top 100 financial companies by capital employed. The research was carried out face-to-face by Ipsos MORI between 1 September 08 and 10 December 2008 and 100 respondants participated.

** NetApp’s Virtualisation Guarantee Programme is available to any business in the world which purchases a new V-Series system for their EMC, IBM, HP, or HDS storage systems, including Citrix XenServer, VMware ESX, and Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V™. If customers don't improve their storage capacity on competitive storage systems by at least 35% with NetApp V-Series and deduplication (and after following established best practices implemented by NetApp Professional Services), NetApp will provide the additional storage capacity needed to meet customers’ shortfall, valued up to 35% of the original controller purchased, at no additional charge*. Qualifying service delivery is available from NetApp Global Services or participating Authorized Professional Service Partners in networked storage for virtualized platforms. Customers that also purchase a NetApp storage system are guaranteed a 50% increase in storage capacity.

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