Compaq Again Captures Number One Spot in Worldwide Server
Sales
4/29/01 8:54 PM
Source:PR Newswire
in Q1 Improving business efficiencies set to drive new momentum in second half
Compaq delivers European share gains ahead of Dell and IBM
HOUSTON, April 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ) today announced it
has again captured the number one position in worldwide sales of industry-standard servers in the
first quarter of 2001, a market it pioneered more than a decade ago. In Europe, Compaq gained 2.2
percent market share, well ahead of Dell, which added only 1.3 points, and Hewlett-Packard and
IBM, who lost share in this region.
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)
According to Q1 figures from
industry research firm Dataquest,
Compaq is delivering more than a
quarter of the world's requirement
for industry-standard servers,
shipping 60,000 units more than
second-place Dell, and more than
twice as many as IBM. The
highlight of these figures is
Western Europe, where Compaq
shipped close to 19,000 more
servers than Dell and IBM
combined. Compaq now delivers
greater than one-third of Western
Europe's total requirement for
industry-standard servers.
In the United States, where economic conditions have impacted growth in overall investments in IT
infrastructure, Compaq has been taking aggressive steps to improve business efficiency and drive
increased growth and profitability by focusing on permanently reducing channel inventories,
lowering structural costs, and streamlining supply chain operations. As part of this process,
Compaq has experienced a decline in reported U.S. market share in industry-standard servers
while overall inventories are being depleted. This decline is primarily in entry-level one- and
two-processor tower models, popular with small and medium businesses, where pricing
competition is intense. Despite this, Compaq's internal estimates show that actual overall
industry-standard server shipments to end customers in North America (known as sales-out
figures) continued to exceed those of competitors.
"While we continue to lead in the industry-standard server market worldwide, we are taking some
necessary short-term pain for second-half gain in the U.S.," said Mary McDowell, senior vice
president and general manager, Compaq Industry Standard Server Group. "The business model
improvements we expect to deliver over the near term, plus new aggressive moves in the areas of
pricing and delivery, will make us an even more formidable competitor in the second half of the
year and moving forward -- regardless of economic conditions. We are now number one in
customer satisfaction in this segment, we're winning global end-to-end deals with major enterprise
customers, and we're receiving acclaim from industry analysts for our ability to deliver innovative
customer solutions globally."
In addition, Compaq announced that as of May 31 it will cease sales of the ProLiant ML770
32-Way server, which is based on the Unisys CMP architecture. Compaq will continue offering its
popular ProLiant 8-Way servers for running Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 2000 Datacenter Server,
which comprise 95 percent of its Windows 2000 Datacenter Server sales to date. Compaq will
continue development of its own unique, feature differentiated 32-Way server architecture to
address the emerging need for large-scale enterprise applications on Windows 2000.
Compaq is the acknowledged global leader in the 8-Way server space with 60 percent market
share, and in the critical ultra-dense server segment, including rack-mounted one- and
two-processor servers, with 40 percent share. And, in early April, the Company launched a new
sub $1,000 server to address the needs of small and medium businesses.
"Furthermore, we are now raising the bar for our competition by taking ultra-dense server designs
to hyper-dense server blades, with our forthcoming QuickBlade server architecture. Sneak peeks
at this unique new technology have produced enthusiastic response from every customer and
analyst who has seen it," added McDowell.
Innovative products, global solutions, excellent execution drive customer satisfaction
The latest customer satisfaction figures from independent research firm TBR place the Compaq
ProLiant at the top of customer satisfaction for servers -- ahead of products from Dell,
Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. Compaq was the only vendor in the study that did not show a decline
in customer satisfaction. Most frequently referenced were Compaq's strengths in server scalability,
management, ease of installation, and remote diagnostics -- all indications that customers
appreciate the unique engineering, innovation and added value that only Compaq offers. It was also
noted that Compaq customers were the most consistent in their satisfaction ratings due to
dependable delivery of products and services by the vendor.
Key ProLiant customer wins announced in the quarter include:
* A $150 million end-to-end global pact with one of the world's largest
petroleum companies, which included 1500 ProLiant servers;
* Yahoo!, who chose Compaq as its preferred Internet infrastructure
provider to power the most heavily visited sites on the Yahoo! network.
* Intuit, with whom Compaq announced a two-year agreement in which Compaq
was named the preferred provider of Intuit's IT needs.
* Activate, who launched a new 20,000 square-foot media streaming facility
housing 200 ProLiant DL380 servers.
With this momentum in increased customer satisfaction, business improvements underway, and
the introduction of innovative new products, Compaq is extremely well positioned for continued
success in providing global end-to-end customer solutions in the second half of the year and
moving forward. |
