cpq and dell with the big boys...
dell doesn't come out good on this and cpq okay.
VAR have allot to do we selling servers as part of an overall
system
May We Serve You? -- Digital's Pentium Pros shine, but Compaq's sell best
VARBUSINESS, Friday, November 28, 1997 at 22:54
(Published on Monday, December 01, 1997 at 00:00)
by Jan Stafford
VARs shopping for midrange Unix servers have the luxury of basing
product choices on the quality of vendor support, because the quality,
performance and reliability of top brands is a given. That's not the
case in the Pentium Pro server market. New to the midrange, Pentium Pro
servers can have the four-processor power needed to run
mission-critical applications, but VARs have found that not all Pentium
Pro servers have the stamina and flexibility that role demands. No
wonder, then, that 135 VARs ranked reliability and expandability as the
most important criteria, respectively, for choosing Pentium Pro server
products in a recent Product Report survey.
"Now that we're putting Pentium Pro servers into mission-critical
solutions that run 24 hours every day, we have to be careful to choose
products that will run-and run at peak performance all the time," says
William Walker, owner of Xebex Data Systems, Cambria, Calif. As
enterprise solutions tend to grow rapidly, in both number of users and
added functionality, "a lack of expandability drastically reduces a
server's life expectancy," he says.
The most reliable servers on the market are Hewlett-Packard Co.'s
NetServer Pentium Pros, according to VARs. "HP does more testing before
releasing a product than any other vendor does," says Frank
Maschkowski, co-owner of FMA Communications, Los Angeles. For that
reason, "HP's system uptime is almost 100 percent."
Three of the other four vendors in this Product Report are putting out
very reliable machines, too. Only four-tenths of a point behind HP in
reliability scores were Digital Equipment Corp., IBM Corp. and Compaq
Computer Corp. Dell Computer was last in reliability with 6.9.
Digital Surges Ahead
In last year's Product Report, HP's win in reliability was the start
of something big: a sweep of seven of eight product criteria. This
year, HP won only in reliability. Other vendors came on strong during
the past year, and four out of five took first place in at least one
category.
The biggest surge came from last year's runner up, Digital. Digital's
Prioris line snatched the title from HP with wins in VARs' second
through fourth most important criteria-expandability, processor
performance and I/O performance-and in high availability features. In
1996, Digital had no firsts at all.
Good scores in all eight product criteria helped Digital's cause.
Digital was second in reliability and pricing/profitability and third
in vendor tech support and quality of network-management software. VARs
praise Digital for doing a great job of migrating high-end technology
to its Intel line. "We've focused on leveraging our high-end VAX
system-engineering expertise in the Pentium Pro arena," says Andrei
Shishov, Digital's director of Windows NT servers marketing.
Digital is "way ahead of other vendors" in providing expansion
options, such as disks, memory boards and processor upgradability
options, says one VAR. Prioris' expandability "gives customers
investment protection," says another.
"Since all of these servers are based on Pentium Pro chips, there's a
limit to how much more processor performance a vendor can squeeze out,"
says Shishov. Digital maximizes performance with strong memory
subsystem design. The result, says Walker, is that "Prioris has much
higher processor performance than other Intel boxes."
HP's drop from first last year to 1997's second in processor
performance could be a byproduct of its intensive quality control. "The
time spent testing usually puts HP one processor behind the pack," says
Walker.
First in I/O performance, Digital's Prioris offers many I/O slots and
a good PCI-bus system design. "We are often the first to use the latest
I/O options, such as RAID controllers, disk drives and network
interface cards," says Shishov.
Close second- and third-place finishes in this Product Report for HP
and IBM show that VARs think vendors with high-end system legacies make
the best Pentium Pro servers. HP lost to Digital by 1.2 points, IBM by
2.4. Meanwhile, the vendors that come from PC backgrounds-Compaq and
Dell-finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
Dismal Showing From Dell
Their common origins don't mean that Compaq and Dell are cut from the
same cloth. Compaq made a respectable showing this year, ending up a
mere 2.7 points off the lead. Compaq won in pricing and profitability,
tied for second in reliability, and placed third in processor
performance. Dell, however, finished last, with the lowest scores in
seven of eight product criteria.
"Dell's pricing is good, but its servers are the least reliable," says
Ronald Souliere, purchasing manager at MicroImages Inc., Lincoln, Neb.
Dell's tech support is "abysmal," and return processes are "horrible,"
VARs say.
Dell should take lessons from IBM, the master of VAR support. "IBM
deserves to win in tech support, because its support is the best," says
Melvin Hallerman, president of Melcor Inc., Henderson, Nev. "If I have
any problems or questions, IBM helps me right away."
IBM's support overcomes sales obstacles created by its high prices,
some VARs say. "Even though IBM's Intel boxes are more expensive than
others, it's easier and more profitable to sell them because the
support is consistent," says Stan Sugimoto, vice president of Santa
Monica, Calif.-based Unique Business Systems. Other VARs obviously
disagree, as IBM was last in pricing and profitability.
Compaq, the winner in pricing and profitability, was also chosen as
VARs' best-selling and tied with HP as most improved brand.
MicroImages, for example, gets better markups on Compaq than on other
lower-priced servers. Also, "the Compaq name is easy to sell, because
it's the market leader," Souliere says. "The buyer figures all those
Compaq users can't be wrong."
Thanks to hot marketing from Compaq, Microsoft Corp. and Intel, buyers
are more aware of Intel options for midrange computing. Clustering will
catch on "in a big way" in the next year, spurring an increased demand
for four-processor servers, says Jerry Sheridan, analyst for Dataquest
Inc., San Jose.
Next year, clustering solutions will be offered by roughly half of
this Product Report's respondents. Currently, only about 30 percent of
VARs are installing clustered servers. Pentium Pros will keep moving up
the midrange scale. Sheridan is sure that "once businesses get four
processors, they'll want eight."
-Quick Scan
Compaq Computer Corp. Houston, Texas (800) 345-1518, www.compaq.com
Dell Computer Round Rock, Texas (800) 472-3355, www.dell.com
Digital Equipment Corp. Maynard, Mass. (800) 646-6994,
www.digital.com
Hewlett-Packard Co. Cupertino, Calif. (800) 322-4772,
www.hp.com/go/netserver
IBM Corp. White Plains, N.Y. (800) 426-7378,
www.ibm.com/servers/menus/servers.html
---
VARs' Best-Selling Pentium Pro Servers
Compaq: 31%
HP: 28%
IBM: 19%
Dell: 14%
Digital: 8%
VARBusiness Research
---
Most Improved Vendor Pentium Pro Servers
Compaq: 22%
HP: 22%
IBM: 18%
Dell: 17%
Other: 16%
Digital: 5%
VARBusiness Research |
