Hewlett-Packard and IBM tied for first place in the hotly contested Unix server market in the fourth quarter of 2002, pushing aside Unix heavyweight SUN, according to a new study released Friday.
Server Leaders Wrestle for Unix Crown
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Trying to process this article is certainly difficult. Apparently there are two conflicting studies, one done by IDC and one done by Gartner. The story then links to a different story with the following quote:
Sun still tops the Unix market, the largest single section of the server business. The company had sales of $6.5 billion for the year and a 38 percent market share.
which the original story qualifies with the following:
Both studies, however, paint the same broad picture: Sun remains top for the overall year, but IBM is gaining ground.
I suppose this is to indicate that the IDC study was done for Q4 2002, but so was the Gartner study. So who are we supposed to trust, considering the results are contradictory? Let’s ask the story:
Sun said it believes the Gartner figures are more accurate and blamed its third-place position in the IDC rankings as the result of seasonal differences in sales.
Well, that doesn’t help at all, as the Gartner figures being quoted are also for Q4 2002… yet Sun is saying trust the Gartner figures and don’t trust the IDC ones because of seasonal differences… for a study done the same season. What the hell?
I’m sorry, this is just an enormous statistical nightmare that I can’t sort out for myself.
I think it’s safe to say that these “studies” aren’t particularly useful in evaluating how various companies stack up, considering their results are so often contradictory.
Judging by the percentages, there is clearly no monopoly, all sides have a +/-10% difference. All these statistics do is show that all three companies will have to compete for a long time.
to get all your statistics from one source.
so do statistics.
but, IBM seems to have upward momentum.
Sun’s is headed downward.
that’s about the end of my incredibly indepth analysis 😉
*ducks/runs*
I was on HP’s site today, and they had this to say: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/feature_stories/2003/03emea.html
Sun has fallen down that is for sure. However in the past they actually were very well run. It may be that the they will listen and get back to innovating some good technology and getting it to market.
I think the entire computing industry is sick of Sun’s hype. And that is why when Sun’s executives come out with their hype-laden announcements, the feedback is unforgiving and harsh. As Sun was one of the biggest hype stories of the dotcom era and bled a lot of companies for tons of SPARCware, there will continue to be backlash for a while longer.
I hope they remember that they are not a software company, though.
From a recent interview with the CEO of Sun, who of course is ex-Sun:
eWEEK: How about the other competitors? Oracle, Sun ONE?
Chuang: Well, Sun ONE we don’t see. Sun doing software has always been challenging for them. The problem with the world that we’re in is if you’re really not heterogeneous, customers don’t want to buy.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,905708,00.asp
–ms
Oooops! Though Sun has lost a lot of executives lately 😉