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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lee who wrote (29008)	3/16/2000 2:34:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Steve - Like I was trying to say earlier, each vendor will use a slice of the IDC data which makes them look good - but my own view is that in the Unix server space, sun actually DOES look good. I would compare IBM's S80 numbers to the combination of UE10000 and UE6500 numbers - since the S80 spans that range, both in configuration and performance. The rest of Sun's line would compete against the rest of IBM's line... but no matter how you slice the data, in today's UNIX market, SUNW looks like the game to beat. re: Anyone like to hazard a guess as to how many servers running NT were sold by Compaq. CPQ shipped close to 300,000 NT servers in 4Q99. I would say that the high end of the ProLiant line (4P and 8P machines) do jobs that might be done by UE3500 and UE4500/5500 systems, so in that sense they compete. But the competition is really around function and architecture - the IT shop has to first decide either to move to a more heterogeneous environment, or to move some applications to NT - and in that event, the Solaris boxes are out of the game. Likewise, if they are looking for a common architectural model, the ProLiant boxes would not be considered for a place in a Solaris shop. So there is probably not as much "box vs. box" competition as there is competition for architectural dominance. CPQ does not break out the numbers for their individual product lines as far as I know, but a few years ago the mix was about 70% "small" machines (2P or less) and 30% 4P machines. Today, CPQ also dominates the 8P NT space with something like 90% share. So they probably shipped something like 100,000 4P and 8P machines... a 12 to 1 advantage angainst SUNW in units. In revenue the advantage looks like it is maybe 3 to 1 given the big difference in cost and ASP. Still, there is a bit of "apples and oranges" here, and a careful view of the market segments where CPQ and SUNW intersect is a lot more complex.