Sun's servers resurgent in 2006 - Gartner
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Dell's pungent Sun Microsystems used 2006 as a throwback session by pushing its sales way higher while rivals were happy to exit the year with any kind of growth.â¦
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Gartner reported that IBM (NYSE: IBM) continues to hold the number one position in worldwide server revenue share, with 32 percent revenue share for 2006. [1] IBM has held this leadership in worldwide server revenue share for 8 consecutive years according to Gartner.
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Low-cost Linux and Windows servers are outselling Unix models, Gartner analysts say.
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Targeting Unix archrivals Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, IBM on Friday topped off the high end of its Power 5-based line of iSeries and pSeries servers, rolling out three systems all capable of hosting as many as 250 virtual servers on a single
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All systems slow Exclusive Servers based on Sun Microsystems' Rock processor will now arrive in the second half of 2009, The Register can confirm.â¦
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Global revenue from server sales climbed to $11.5 billion in the second quarter, according to new data from Gartner. This represents a 7.7 percent revenue increase over the same period last year, the market researcher said Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - A Sun Microsystems executive said the $13 billion technology company should be able to handle a possible slowdown in information technology (IT) spending better than some of its larger rivals. John Fowler, senior vice president of Sun's Systems Group, which sells servers and related products, responded Tuesday to a research report forecasting slower growth for global IT spending in 2007. Forrester ResearchÂ forecasts worldwide spending on IT goods and services to grow by only 5 percent next year, after two consecutive years of 8 percent growth. Forrester said 5 percent would be the weakest growth rate since 2003. Fowler, in an interview with technology reporters, said larger rivals such as Hewlett-Packard, which finished its fiscal year with $91.7 billion in revenue, IBM, forecast to make $90.72 billion, and Dell, $58 billion, are more vulnerable to macroeconomic conditions than the smaller Sun. "We can, in a weaker market, gain ground in market share by virtue of product and execution, which is what has been happening," Fowler said. He noted that when the worldwide server market grew by just 0.6 percent in the second quarter of this year, Sun's revenue grew by 15.5 percent, according to a report from the research firm IDC. In the third quarter, when the server market grew only 3.5 percent, Sun's revenue grew 15.8 percent. "You have to pay attention to macroeconomics but...if you were a $60 to $70 billion company, the macroeconomics affect you [more] dramatically," Fowler said. However, Sun's server shares have been in the low double digits and the company has been reporting net losses in recent quarterly reports. Forrester said sales in the U.S., in particular, will be weak as chief information officers at companies reduce spending in the coming year. "This is a caution flag for IT vendors, 2007 will be a challenging environment," said Andrew Bartels, vice president of Forrester Research, in a prepared statement.
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TechWeb - Customers are decoupling storage from server purchases, which explains why EMC and NetApp earnings were up and why Sun and HP were flat or down, Warmenhoven says.
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Server shipments and revenue increased in the second quarter, as Sun Microsystems and Dell gained market share at the expense of Hewlett-Packard and IBM, according to research recently released by Gartner.
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(InfoWorld) - Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President Jonathan Schwartz made it clear Wednesday what kind of customers his company hopes to lure now that long-troubled Sun finally appears to be in the middle of an upswing. "There are two customers we see [in the market]," Schwartz said, speaking at a Sun product launch event in New York. "Customers that look at information technology as a competitive weapon, and those that look at information technology as a cost center. We're obsessed with and focused on the former." Calling New York the "epicenter for those kind of customers" because of the technology-savvy financial services firms and media companies that have headquarters there, Schwartz outlined some of the positives for his company since he assumed the CEO position a little over 100 days ago. While his first 100 days "honeymoon is over," according to Schwartz, Sun is just beginning to see the fruits of a comeback strategy it's been crafting since it took the dot.com bust on the chin in 2001. The company seems to be finally climbing -- albeit slowly -- out of its unprofitable rut, and has shown promising revenue growth over the last couple of quarters as it cut costs by shedding employees. Schwartz said the company even expects to achieve sustainable profitability by its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends June 30, 2007. Schwartz had little new to report about the company's overall strategy, although Sun Wednesday launched some storage and server products -- and one, called "Thumper," that is a hybrid of the two. In a message he's been trumpeting for years, the new CEO continued to stress Sun's commitment to offering a mix of hardware systems, software, storage and services, and helping customers combine those products in heterogeneous IT environments so Sun's products run seamlessly alongside competitive offerings. Schwartz pointed to the success of Sun's open-source version of its Solaris OS as proof that Sun is happy to play well with others if it means winning customers. He said since the company open sourced Solaris last year, nearly 70 percent of its implementations have been on competing hardware from IBM Corp., Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., not Sun's own servers. Sun to date has distributed nearly 6 million licenses for OpenSolaris, Schwartz added. One analyst who attended Wednesday's event said it was not meant to be a new product-driven launch. Instead, said Jonathan Eunice, an analyst with Illuminata, the event was to show that Sun's investment in open source and new products over the past several years, including its early adoption of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron chips for its Galaxy server line, is finally beginning to pay off. Sun Wednesday sent a message that it's on the right path now and has something compelling to offer customers who shied away from it since it hit hard times, he said. "This is a drumbeat event," Eunice said. "This was not about the product pipeline, but about customer connections. [This is Sun saying], 'We continue to do the work, continue to get back with quality customers.'" Sun's announcement Wednesday that it has renewed its relationship with systems integrator Accenture Ltd., which is setting up an identity management practice on Sun's technology, is particularly important to reaching new customers or some it has lost since its downturn, Eunice said. "It's a very critical way for Sun to get new business and revenue," he said of the Accenture deal.
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Three years ago, we attended Sun&#39;s quarterly network computing day. It was the heart of the Bust, and we were treated to pot shots directed at IBM and Microsoft and were told that Sun was the true &quot;open standards&quot; vendor.
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(InfoWorld) - Despite a revenue plunge of 9.5 percent, Intel Corp. will retain its title as king of the hill for the worldwide semiconductor industry, posting annual revenue of $31.3 billion for 2006, according to Gartner. Intel's top competitors will post much better numbers, all recording double-digit revenue growth as they enjoy strong sales in dynamic RAM (DRAM) memory chips, wireless semiconductors and NAND flash, according to preliminary results for 2006 that Gartner released Thursday. Overall, the market is set to grow 11.3 percent to $261.4 billion. Intel's sinking results in this rising tide will cause its market share to sag from 14.7 percent in 2005 to 12 percent. The company was only able to record its 15th straight year as a market leader because it had banked such a large lead on smaller rivals like Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (with 7.9 percent market share) and Texas Instruments Inc. (4.5 percent). Intel's problem was that its competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) sold superior processors through the third quarter, judging by the chips' balance of price and performance in the server and consumer enthusiast segments, Gartner said. Intel lost even more revenue as the two companies launched a price war, which hurt Intel more than AMD as the larger company. Meanwhile, Samsung strengthened its position as the industry's second-biggest vendor by selling more DRAM, static RAM (SRAM) and NAND flash chips than any other company. Samsung will grow 12.4 percent to reach revenues of $20.6 billion, followed by Texas Instruments growing 17.4 percent to $11.9 billion and Infineon Technologies AG growing 29 percent to reach $10.6 billion, Gartner said. The bottom half of the top 10 were all predicted to record revenue of single-digit billions, including STMicroelectronics NV, Toshiba Corp., Renesas Technology Corp., Hynix Semiconductor Inc., AMD and Freescale Semiconductor Inc. The semiconductor industry will grow more slowly in 2007, likely rising by a high single-digit percentage compared to its 11.3 percent rise in 2006, Gartner said. The high points of the coming year will include continuing strength in the DRAM market and strong consumer electronics sales.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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Sun doubled its profit in the quarter ended Dec. 30, although revenue was nearly flat compared with the same period a year earlier, the company announced Thursday.Net income for the quarter, the second of Sun&#39;s fiscal year, was $260 million, or $0.31 per share, up from $133 million and $0.15 per share in the same quarter of fiscal 2006, the company announced Thursday.Revenue was $3.62 billion, up just 1.4 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. The growth came from Sun&#39;s services business, where revenue climbed 5 percent. Sales of servers and storage products, which account for about two-thirds of Sun&#39;s business, declined by 0.5 percent.Business was particularly slow in the U.S., where revenue declined 8 percent year over year. The EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) region performed better with growth of 7 percent. EMEA accounted for 39 percent of revenue in the quarter, overtaking the U.S., which is usually Sun&#39;s biggest source of revenue.Despite the quarter&#39;s slow growth, Sun said its full-year growth would be better. On a conference call, Chief Financial Officer Mike Lehman said revenue for fiscal 2008 would increase in the &quot;low-to-mid single digits&quot; and predicted revenue growth in the second half of greater than 5 percent.Sun&#39;s profit benefited from its ongoing cost-cutting plan, which has included several hundred layoffs so far. Its $260 million profit included a restructuring charge of $32 million.Sun announced a surprise plan last week to buy MySQL, the biggest open-source database vendor, for $1 billion. Sun officials said Thursday they are unsure whether the MySQL acquisition will close in the second or third quarter, and have not yet calculated the long-term impact on Sun&#39;s financials. They expect to take a one-time charge of $30 million to $50 million when the deal closes.
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(InfoWorld) - New numbers from Gartner show that computer server sales slowed in the third quarter, a trend the research company attributes to virtualization. Gartner's latest report on servers, released Tuesday, shows that worldwide sales grew by 4.4 percent, based on revenue, to just over $13 billion, and 9.1 percent by unit volume, to 2 billion servers. In the second quarter, sales rose 2.5 percent by revenue and 12.8 percent by unit volume. "We have seen double-digit growth in the past," said Jeff Hewitt, research director for Gartner. "Server sales are still growing, but because of virtualization, customers don't have to buy as many servers." Virtualization makes it possible to run more programs on one physical server, using more of its capacity and making it possible for a data center to handle more work with fewer servers. Among the server vendors, market share rankings remained the same in Gartner's numbers, which cover the three-month period ended Sept. 30, compared with previous quarters. IBM Corp. retained the market share lead, with 33.7 percent, based on a 7.4 percent revenue gain to $4.38 billion, from the third quarter of 2005. Hewlett-Packard Co. followed with 25.3 percent market share on a 6 percent decline in revenue to $3.29 billion. Dell Inc. ranked third with a 10.8 percent share on a 10.2 percent revenue gain to $1.41 billion. Sun Microsystems Inc. ranked fourth with a 10.1 percent share based on a 24.7 percent revenue gain to $1.31 billion. Fujitsu Computer Systems Corp. ranked fifth, with a 4.9 percent share on a 5.6 percent revenue gain to $634 million. Other vendors combined for a 15.3 percent share based on 6.5 percent revenue growth to $1.99 billion. Hewitt attributed Sun's resurgence to the introduction of new servers running the Opteron microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which has emerged as a strong competitor to the processors from Intel Corp. In sales based on unit volume, HP led the way with a 26.5 percent share based on 7.2 percent growth to 540,609 units; Dell ranked second with a 22.5 percent share on 10.5 percent growth to 459,950; IBM third with 16.3 percent share on 7.7 percent growth to 332,777; Sun Microsystems fourth with a 4.1 percent share on a 6.4 percent growth to 83,018 units; and Fujitsu fifth with a 3.2 percent, based on a decline of 5.9 percent to 65,171. Other server brands collectively reported 27.5 percent share on growth of 13.4 percent to 560,913 units.
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Long-suffering server maker sees revenue gains after five years of declines.
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Hails successful channel push Avnet's Partner Solutions Sun Division has doubled the number of Sun resellers it serves in the UK.â¦
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Sun Microsystems Inc. is on track to meet its financial targets for the 2008 and 2009 fiscal years, fueled by strong sales growth in emerging markets and a shift toward more expensive server and storage setups, the company's chief financial officer said Tuesday.