CSA 2011: Servers are a Critical Infrastructure Component Now

Enterprises over the years have taken a reactive approach to buying serversbuying only when demand spikes up. But in the last couple of years, especially post the downturn, servers have been increasingly seen as a critical infrastructural component. Hence vendors took an eco system based approach and positioned both x86 and non-x86 as key computing enablers matching customers applications and usage backbone.

If we take the case of IBM which unseated HP this year to become #1 in server satisfaction scores, it pitched aggressively on innovative products. One such product that IBM aggressively launched was its eX5 systemsthe first to fully de-couple memory from the processor. eX5 is the first generation of Enterprise X-Architecture to support blade and two-socket servers, extending the innovation of X-Architecture to an even broader set of clients.

Globally, IBM had a very good year for servers and that was the case in India too, as was reinforced by the CSA survey scores. HP went down one place to take the #2 spotit was a tough battle between the two companies. It was a tough year for servers as all vendors saw their scores declining as compared to last year.

IBM and HP clearly benefitted from the ensuing confusion post Oracles takeover of Sun, and initiatives like IBMs Sunset Program saw good client migration from Sun to IBM. HP also saw a similar trend. Suns customer satisfaction scores declined to the #5 spot. Dell too lost its #3 position giving way to HCL, which was at #5 last year.

This year, a tough competition is on the cards on the x86 front with new players like Acer and Fujitsu doing well. Meanwhile the non-x86 Unix market is polarized between IBM and HP. Many vendors are also pitching for energy efficient green servers, which offer more compute with lesser power consumption. And in the compute density game, blade servers are seen as the high growth area while the tower servers market will see a gradual fade-out in the years ahead, giving way to racks.

We are currently present in 22 cities. We plan to cover
47 by 2013

Alok Ohrie, director, systems and technology group, IBM India/SA

Product Reliability is one of the parameters where IBM toppedyour thoughts?

Product reliability is legendary for IBM. Innovation drives IBM and we lay great stress on the functionality of the product, and design products that meet customer expectations. In 2009 alone IBM invested close to $5.8 bn in R&D globally, by far one of the biggest spends in the industry on R&D. And, interestingly, half of that R&D spend went into systems. With that kind of push we are able to create products that are robust and agile, and will be able to satisfy diverse customer environments.

Is an emerging market like India unique for servers in terms of customer expectations?

Well I would call India a growing market rather than emerging one. The CIO priorities are pretty well defined here and one of the unique advantages of India is that enterprises do not have legacy baggage, hence IT assets here are contemporary. The customers here are as demanding as anywhere else, and they are mature and clearly know what they want from the vendors. India is growing at a rapid pace and, clearly, CIOs want speedier returns on their IT spends.

On pre and post sales...

We have put great emphasis on technical sales. We have created a large pool of pre-sales specialists and created POCs for customers. We have innovative concepts and technologies like software that is embedded into the system and which monitors the system. On post sales, we have the direct as well as the indirect model. Irrespective of the service model, we give great emphasis on quality of service and its depth, as we have an extremely competent post sales team that excels in service quality.

On the cards...

Cleary the server market is on a growth path in India. I believe the non-x86 Unix market will rebound and continue to remain the clear choice for mission critical applications. We have an aggressive geo expansion in place. For instance, we are currently present in 22 cities.

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We plan to increase our presence to 47 cities by 2013. All these initiatives backed by robust products makes 2011 an exciting year for IBM in India.

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Enterprises over the years have taken a reactive approach to buying serversbuying only when demand spikes up. But in the last couple of years, especially post the downturn, servers have been increasingly seen as a critical infrastructural component. Hence vendors took an eco system based approach and positioned both x86 and non-x86 as key computing enablers matching customers applications and usage backbone.

If we take the case of IBM which unseated HP this year to become #1 in server satisfaction scores, it pitched aggressively on innovative products. One such product that IBM aggressively launched was its eX5 systemsthe first to fully de-couple memory from the processor. eX5 is the first generation of Enterprise X-Architecture to support blade and two-socket servers, extending the innovation of X-Architecture to an even broader set of clients.