Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Yes, thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Aaron Rakers of Wachovia.
Aaron Rakers - Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC
Maybe you can help us understand what the currency impact was, and then also help us understand the economic backdrop. Joe, could you comment on how the trends looked through the course of the quarter from a linearity perspective?
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David Goulden
When we are working a customer, it's really the solution value and the solution margin which we're actually looking to achieve. And at a product level, we had nice growth in storage and product margins went up in the storage as well. So I know you can't look at those numbers. I wouldn't read too much into the mix inside of the Storage business.
Unidentified Analyst - Unidentified Company
And then just quickly, Joe, can you share your vision of EMC's participation in the consumer market given some of the recent acquisitions?
Joe Tucci
Sure. When you - I'm sure you're talking about our planned acquisition of Iomega and our introduction of our Lifeline software. Obviously we've been very influenced by a lot of the research that's been done which points out that if you think of information and its creation, 70% of information is created by individuals. And that number's been tested and tested, and it seems pretty solid. And then of course on the other side, 85% of the information that is created by individuals will be managed by bigger enterprises or in cloud computing topologies.
So what we really want to do, [Katie], is connect those two together. So obviously we think most middleclass people around the world will have a terabyte of storage in their home over the next couple of years, so there's opportunity to play there. And, of course, even more compelling to us is that we believe that home will be connected to big information centers around the world, and we certainly want to play there. As we play on both ends of that, we think it's going to be a great market for us.
Also, as we get into that, it gives us a lot of ability to leverage our supply chain and bring down costs across the whole business. So it's quite strategic, and that's kind of behind our thinking.
Unidentified Analyst - Unidentified Company
Thanks. Good quarter, guys.
Tony Takazawa
Thanks, Katie. Just as a reminder, we ask that you limit yourself to one question, please. Lori, can we take the next one?
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