Storage customers will apparently do as they are told, favoring media and analyst recommendations and branding over price and performance when evaluating gear, according to a recent study.

The SNIA (Storage Network Industry Association) Europe trade group conducted a survey of storage users in the UK, France and Germany and found that a "vendor's visibility is one of the main influencing factors in purchase decision-making." Users respond to a vendor that comes off well in press and analyst reports. In fact, 72 percent of the users surveyed said they saw press coverage as either a high or medium concern when buying storage products. Out of that figure, 42 percent of the users saw media coverage as a high-ranking criteria compared to only 28 percent that saw price as a high-priority.

With that in mind, The Register invites you to try our new line of high-priced but also high-end SAN (storage area network) hardware. Simply put - it's fantastic. Honest.

What else did SNIA discover?

"Analyst reports proved influential in the decision-making process, far higher than product performance or return on investment (ROI)," the group said.

UK users tended to place a higher priority on price, while Germans placed the least importance on price and the French users fell in the middle.

Given this information, SNIA came up with one of the oddest conclusions from its own study.

"With the advent of more advanced storage networking solutions and industry legislation, customers are becoming more astute," said Paul Talbut, chairman of SNIA Europe.

While Talbut's assessment rightfully points to the prominent role the press plays in user astutement, we can't help but wonder if users wouldn't be seen as more astute if they valued price and performance over our prose/drivel. Register readers no doubt make up the majority of those who do in fact value price/performance over press and analyst evaluations. We would expect nothing less. Try to help out your non-Register reading friends.

For the storage vendors out there, we think the study speaks for itself. Get on with the impressing. ®

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