This IDC study provides IDC's 2006 worldwide market analysis and forecast for a critical component in the market for network storage solutions. It forecasts unit and port shipments as well as factory and market revenue for the sale of Fibre Channel host bus adapters (FC HBAs). The study also includes 2005 vendor market share for FC HBA revenue and shipments. This study discusses how future trends in server form factors, server virtualization, and competing technologies such as iSCSI will affect the competitive position of HBA vendors.

"The next two years represent a critical period for FC HBA suppliers. They must capitalize on the strong uptick in SAN connectivity driven by server virtualization," said Richard Villars, vice president, Storage Systems at IDC. "They must also continue to prepare at a business level for greater sales of much lower priced (but high margin) daughterboard FC HBAs for sever blades."