StorONE says Q1 bookings top full-year 2025 on demand

StorONE said first-quarter bookings and revenue exceeded its full-year 2025 total, driven by stronger enterprise demand for its Real-Time Tiering technology.

The storage software supplier reported a record quarter as customers sought ways to cut storage costs amid higher flash prices and tighter hardware availability. It also expanded channel partnerships and technology alliances, particularly in the enterprise backup market.

At the centre of its pitch is software that delivers flash-level performance for workloads while moving less active data to lower-cost media. StorONE said this can improve the effective use of flash by up to nine times, and its hardware-agnostic design allows deployment on infrastructure from any qualified hardware vendor.

That matters in a market where some buyers face longer delivery times for storage hardware. By enabling deployment on available systems rather than requiring specific equipment, customers can move ahead despite supply constraints, according to StorONE.

Sales shift

StorONE also pointed to a sharp change in buying behaviour during the quarter. Average enterprise sales cycles fell to about 2.5 months from roughly 4.5 months, reflecting greater urgency among organisations seeking to reduce storage spending and quickly secure infrastructure, the company said.

The reduction suggests storage efficiency has become an immediate purchasing issue rather than a longer-term optimisation project. Companies are increasingly weighing the cost of flash media against the need to maintain performance for active workloads, while also coping with shortages and procurement delays across the hardware market.

The quarter's results suggest those pressures may be benefiting suppliers that offer software-based ways to stretch existing storage resources. In StorONE's case, that means using flash for active data while shifting inactive data to cheaper media, without requiring customers to manage complex policy rules.

The approach has also gained attention in enterprise backup and broader storage environments, where businesses are under pressure to retain growing volumes of data without letting infrastructure costs rise at the same pace. Growth in channel partnerships and technology alliances can help vendors reach those buyers, especially where sales depend on integrators and other partners.

Gal Naor, Chief Executive Officer of StorONE, said customers are making decisions more quickly.

"Enterprise customers are no longer spending months evaluating storage efficiency strategies," Naor said. "The combination of rising flash costs and severe hardware shortages has turned storage efficiency into an immediate operational priority. The biggest change we are seeing is the acceleration in customer decision-making."

Market pressure

Storage suppliers have long promoted tiering as a way to balance performance and cost, but the recent combination of higher component prices and uneven hardware supply has made the issue more urgent. Enterprises that once treated storage architecture changes as gradual infrastructure projects are now more likely to tie them directly to near-term budget control and procurement risk.

StorONE's claim that customers can deploy on infrastructure from any qualified hardware vendor also reflects a wider industry trend. Buyers have become more cautious about designs that depend on a narrow set of appliances or systems with long lead times, particularly where existing server and storage estates can be repurposed.

For StorONE, the quarter's performance appears to reflect both market conditions and demand for an operating model that separates software from hardware choice. That may appeal to organisations seeking greater flexibility in how they source and scale storage systems.

The company did not disclose absolute revenue or bookings figures, but said the first-quarter total was higher than all of 2025. It presented the comparison as a sign of momentum in its core market and as evidence that customers are moving more quickly to address storage-efficiency concerns.

A second quote from Naor highlighted the two issues the company sees as most pressing for buyers.

"Organisations need two things right now: dramatically better storage economics and the flexibility to deploy immediately on available hardware," Naor said. "StorONE is uniquely positioned to deliver both."