IBM registers 57% growth in UNIX in AP and Asean/SA 

IBM's UNIX servers grew 57 percent by revenue in Asia Pacific (AP) and gained 7.2 percent points in market share year-on-year in the first quarter of 2001, outpacing Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard according to International Data Corporation (IDC). In AP excluding Japan, IDC said IBM emerged as the leader in Unix servers with revenues of $ 03.37 million and market share of 30.4 percent.

IDC also announced that IBM has grown 34.5 percent in ASEAN/SA, faster than any of its major competitors and in the process gained 3.4 percent share and it continues the fantastic momentum gained in the ASEAN/SA region in 2000. The decrease in the market size in Q1 2000 and the increase of IBM's


revenue in Q1 2001 meant that the overall market grew by 12 percent as compared to the flat growth reported earlier by

IDC.

Leading the way for IBM were the mainly two large markets in the region-Japan and Greater China (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan). According to the reports, IBM in Japan grew its Unix server revenue by 54.5 percent in the first quarter and gained market share by 4.3 percent points in Q1 2001 over Q1 2000, while both HP and Sun experienced revenue declines.

In Greater China, IBM retained its position as the number one player in the Unix server market from Q4 2001, IDC said. IBM grew 154 percent by revenue and gained 19 percent points of Unix server market share over Q1 2000 to reach 43.2 percent in Q1 2001, which was well ahead of Sun at number two position, IDC said. In the People's Republic of China (PRC) alone, IBM grew 262 percent by revenue in Q1 2001 over Q1 2000, which was at least six times the growth experienced by any other vendor in the top five, according to

IDC. 

As a result, IBM gained 24 percent points of revenue market share in Q1 2001 in PRC to reach a market share of 44 percent. "IBM has done well in aligning its strengths to the market opportunity," said Avneesh Saxena, Associate Director (Enterprise Servers and Workstations group), IDC. "Its aggressive marketing coupled with improving price/performances has helped in propelling its Unix server revenue."

Basu Hurkadli, Country Manager, System Sales, IBM India, attributed IBM's growth to the launch of IBM's eServer line last year and the unified effort

of the extended IBM team in the region, which includes IBM Business Partners, systems integrators and software vendors. "Coupled with our technology leadership and our commitment to open standards, customers now


know that we provide IBM eServer pSeries, industry-leading UNIX servers, with dramatically better performance and reliability than competing systems at a Lower cost," Basu said.

Extending the strategy that has driven IBM's success since the introduction of breakthrough copper technology in 1999, IBM also recently introduced two

ultra-powerful midrange IBM eServer and UNIX systems-the p620 and p660-that leverage IBM's Silicon-on-Insulator technology, self-management

capabilities and mainframe-grade memory correction features for extraordinary UNIX performance.

"In contrast to the IBM systems, Sun's comparable server, the recently announced Sun Fire 3800-is up to 88 percent more expensive; consumes nearly three times more electricity; and generates tremendous amounts of heat-the bane of server reliability," Basu said. Requiring more processors to achieve a given level of performance, the Sun Fire 3800 also is one of the industry's costliest platforms for running key software applications," he said.

The newest release of IBM's UNIX operating system, AIX5L, also accomplishes IBM's goal of providing the industry's most open UNIX platform via the Linux affinity implementation. "With these announcements, we will continue to provide the best UNIX solutions to customers and enhance our ability to explore new e-business opportunities" Basu concluded.