Sun Storms the Server Market, Beats All UNIX Competitors in Revenue and Shipments for First Half Of 1998
Business Editors/High Tech Writers
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 12, 1998--
Sun Also Seizes Total Midrange Server Market Lead from H-P for Q2 CY98, Posting More Shipments Overall with Better Scaling, Higher Availability Servers
Toppling all competitors in the heated race for server market leadership, Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced it has captured the number one position for both revenue and unit shipments in the overall UNIX(R) server market, based on new data from leading research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) (1). Sun, already the leader in UNIX shipments from the second quarter of calendar year 1997 (Q2CY97), wrested the top revenue spot in UNIX servers from Hewlett-Packard Company (H-P) in the second quarter of this calendar year (Q2 CY98), shoring up a 27 percent share of all UNIX server revenue. Furthermore, Sun achieved a stunning win in the total server market (comprising all UNIX, Windows NT and other platform servers), knocking H-P out of the lead to command first place in total midrange server shipments with a 26 percent share of the market in Q2 CY98.
Sun's overthrow of H-P and all other midrange server rivals can be attributed in large part to the numerous wins it has achieved with customers embracing the powerful combination of the new midrange
Sun(TM) Enterprise(TM) 3500 through 6500 server series running the Solaris(TM) operating environment.
Launched in April of this year, the Sun Enterprise 3500-6500 server line has generated record-breaking momentum across major markets worldwide for providing outstanding scalability and performance to the entire spectrum of business-critical applications, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), e-commerce, data warehousing and customer management solutions.
"Sun's market share gains in the first half of 1998 illustrate the company's concerted focus on meeting user needs for availability, scalabilty and performance in an increasingly Internet-driven, network
computing world," said Jay Bretzmann, vice president of worldwide systems research for IDC. "Second quarter results for Sun are historically strong, as they represent the end of the company's fiscal year, but the trend indicates Sun emerges equally as strong in the fourth quarter. As the year progresses, we expect the market to heat up and the race for first place to continue to be exciting."
Sun Delivers Breakthrough Capabilities at Competitive Prices
The Sun Enterprise 3500, 4500, 5500 and 6500 servers hit the sweet spot for customers by balancing performance and unique functionality with price. Sun's midrange servers are the first and only systems from any vendor to offer the mainframe-class technologies of dynamic reconfiguration (DR) and alternate pathing (AP) at the midrange level. Originally available outside of the mainframe world only in the high-end Sun Enterprise 10000 (also known as Starfire(TM))server, DR and AP enable online reconfiguration and maintenance capabilities that are essential for high-availability environments. DR provides software support for system expansion and repair while the system is in active use, and is essential for minimizing downtime.
Alternate pathing further maintains uptime by enabling the system administrator to re-route I/O traffic while the server is in operation. "From the Solaris operating environment to the entire line of Sun Enterprise server systems, Sun designs highest RAS (reliability,availability, serviceability) levels to serve customers'
mission-critical needs right into the very 'DNA' of our technology architecture," said John Shoemaker, vice president and general manager
of Sun's enterprise desktops and servers group. "Couple that with the fact that Sun uniquely provides DR and AP availability features in its midrange and high-end servers and backs them with outstanding service and support, and it's easy to see how we've blasted away the competition in all UNIX combined server categories and the entire server midrange. Sun has proven yet again that it possesses the winning technology it takes to lead the server market."
Major Expansion in Sun's Installed Base Seen Worldwide
Announcement of these pioneering features has propelled sales of Sun Enterprise midrange servers across an array of industries around the world that deploy a wide variety of applications, for example: Sun Servers Fuel UK Retailer's Booming Operations Sun servers are at the heart of the operations of Scottish and Newcastle Retail, a company based in Northampton, U.K., which reports a turnover of u863 million a year and employs 27,000 people. "We use Sun servers throughout our enterprise, including human resources. We've chosen Sun based on its reputation for service and support, ease of maintenance and price," explained David Ridge, systems support manager, Scottish and Newcastle Retail.
Scottish and Newcastle Retail recently added a Sun Enterprise 5500 server to a lineup that already includes a Sun Enterprise 3000, Sun Enterprise 4000 and a number of Sun workgroup servers. Ridge sums up the greatest power behind the application and business-needs fulfillment that Sun servers deliver with one word: "Resilience."
Sun Delivers Campus E-mail While Safeguarding Intellectual Property at
American University
Washington DC's American University views Sun technology as the tireless workhorse in its IT infrastructure. Two Sun Enterprise 5500
and one each of the Sun Enterprise 3500 and 4500 servers comprise American University's network, powering everything from campus-wide
e-mail and groupware to datawarehousing and academic research. According to Carl Whitman, executive director, office of information technology at American University, "We chose Sun because it presented the best technology, price/performance ratio and support for our industry. Our top criteria were performance and reliability. With more than 12,000 users of our campus e-mail, web server and general-purpose computing platforms, we needed equipment that could scale to handle the ever-growing workload created by our students, faculty and staff."
Internet Advertising Leader Manages More than Half a Million User
Profiles with Sun
MatchLogic, a leader in Internet advertising campaign management based in Louisville, Colorado, uses Sun servers to serve and track millions of Web banner impressions and to power its database of more than 600,000 consumer profiles from consenting users. Such data cross-referenced with the Web ad banner data lead advertisers to the
best prospects for an array of products and services. "We can't afford to tarnish our image with servers and storage going down," said Tom
Ball, director of network operations for MatchLogic. "With the Sun Enterprise servers and storage we have in place, I don't have to worry. I also don't need 50 people baby-sitting the machines. They're extremely reliable, scalable and easily managed." A satisfied repeat customer, MatchLogic recently added three Sun Enterprise 3500 servers to its powerful existing base of two Sun Enterprise 6000 servers, two Sun Enterprise 4000 servers, two Sun Enterprise 3000 servers and one Sun Enterprise 450 workgroup server.
About the Sun Enterprise Server Family
The Sun Enterprise server family is a single, binary-compatible product line featuring a range of servers that scale from one to 64 processors, all running the Solaris operating environment. They are designed for an array of computing environments, spanning the workgroup to the data center.
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The story continues to sound good but will the future bring in better results. I believe so as long as the Internet continues to grow, especially e-commerce opportunities.
EKS |
