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To: FJB who wrote (18112)	6/16/1998 3:23:00 AM
From: pat mudge	Respond to of 25960

I'm not sure what we can extrapolate from the server market, but it makes interesting reading, just the same: <<< NEC Leads in Japan's Personal Computer Server Market June 16, 1998 (TOKYO) -- NEC Corp. shipped about 47,500 PC servers in fiscal 1997, registering a substantial lead over the second-ranking producer and thus consolidating its top-ranking position. Many producers with about the same level of sales competed for second place. Compaq Computer K.K. of Japan, which seeks to make gains through its merger with Digital Equipment Corp. Japan (DEC Japan), registered fourth. The figures on the number of units shipped for makers other than NEC, Hitachi Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and Toshiba Corp. are estimates made by Nikkei Watcher on IT Business. Nikkei Watcher's survey is limited to those PC servers that use CPUs made by Intel Corp. and with Microsoft's Windows NT as the operating system. Apart from the performance of top-ranking NEC, the PC server market has recently been in a state of battle, Nikkei Watcher said. NEC took the lead from Compaq in 1996. In fiscal 1997, NEC widened its lead to about 21,000 units, and secured the top position. NEC aims to ship more than 62,000 servers in fiscal 1998, for an increase of 30 percent. As for the second position in the PC server market, a cluster of makers are competing with great intensity. They are Fujitsu Ltd., IBM Japan Ltd., Compaq and Hitachi Ltd. In fiscal 1996 and fiscal 1997, Fujitsu seized the second position, followed by IBM Japan and Compaq in the fourth position. Following its merger with Tandem Computers Japan Ltd. in January 1998, Compaq is scheduled to merge with DEC Japan. The total of the servers shipped by those two companies would have placed Compaq/DEC Japan in the second position, surpassing the current second-ranking Fujitsu, in fiscal 1997. A strong possibility exists in fiscal 1998 for more changes in the rankings. Indeed, the PC server market is a microcosm of the overall computer market. While the first half of fiscal 1997 was surprisingly strong, the market failed to expand in the second half due to the impact of the economic slowdown. The nine major PC vendors sold a total of 182,900 PC servers, for an increase of 47.1 percent from the previous year. However, the total was far short of the expected 83.0 percent increase calculated by adding the corporate targets for fiscal 1997. No single vendor reached its projected target for sales in fiscal 1997. The number of PC servers that NEC shipped in fiscal 1997 reached 47,500, for an increase of 63.8 percent. NEC is seeing strong sales of its main server model, called Express5800. NEC said it mobilized the resources of the entire company for selling that model. In fiscal 1997, the company sold about 7,000 units to Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd., and it gained many large-scale orders involving hundreds of units. Among the cluster of companies competing for the second position, IBM Japan showed a major increase. Its sales for 1997 (ending December), registered about 26,000 units, for an increase of 62.5 percent from the previous year. The groupware Lotus Notes served as the locomotive for this sales growth. Fujitsu shipped 26,400 units, registering an increase of 32.0 percent over the previous year. The company points to the system management server featuring the company's integrated management software called MpWalker as the product that boosted its sales growth in fiscal 1997. The company started shipping the product in mid 1996. >>>>