'Mine's bigger than yours', said IBM to EMC

EMC's self-proclaimed number one status as the king of storage suffered a further blow today when IBM claimed it is substantially bigger than EMC.

IBM - speaking at Storage Network event in Sevilla, Southern Spain - claimed EMC is behind IBM in total storage revenue, which includes all hardware shipped, consultancy and outsourcing. Last month EMC was subject to similar bullish claims from Compaq, who claimed it had shipped more storage units than EMC.

Adalio Sanchez, general manager for Storage Networking division of IBM, said there is no question who is the market leader.

"If we add all our storage revenue together, IBM will bypass EMC with flying colours. In addition, we are in the lead with innovation. EMC filed 70 storage patents last year but we had over 400 storage patents," he said.

But EMC claimed IBM are inventing their own figures. Sean Kernis, marketing director of EMEA at EMC said:

"I'd like to see those figures as they seem to be desperately adding bits and pieces together. We rely on the industry figures published by reputable sources such as Gartner and IDC based on revenue only. Just because a company patents a lot it doesn't mean they're number one."