The Numero Uno

Are more and more systems and companies shifting to Unix? Ask IBM, the

company, which continues to march ahead of its competitors in the worldwide

server market. According to IDC, in the second quarter of 2005, IBM had 31.9%

share in the worldwide server revenue, and a global Unix-base server revenue at

31.8%. IBM's revenue grew 36% y-o-y in Q2 as opposed to IBM's closest

competitors-HP's revenues grew 2% and Sun's grew 11%.

Today, IBM is the undisputed leader in the worldwide server market and a

significant share of its growth comes from Unix. IBM is the fastest growing Unix

vendor today. The company's worldwide Unix-based server revenues across

geographies grew at over 20% in the last quarter while it's India revenues

went up by 135% y-o-y.

Clearly, India is IBM's biggest bet for the Unix-based server market. While

India continues to be the fastest growing market in terms of revenues, the

largest share of revenues come from the Asean region with telecom being the

biggest driver. Says Gary Lee Lancaster, VP, pSeries, IBM Asia Pacific,

"Telecom is a booming sector in the region. We offer the perfect value

proposition that fits well with the requirements of these enterprises and allows

them the scale." Significant growth is also coming from sectors like BFSI

and manufacturing.

The IBM Power microprocessor is the world's most advanced processor

technology and the first server on a chip and is used in all IBM Unix systems

and IBM eServer iseries, the industry's leading mainframe server for mid-sized

businesses. IBM is deeply committed to the Unix consolidation movement and this

gets reflected in the sheer growth the company's Unix business witnessed in

the recent past. Says Adalio Sanchez, general manager, server pSeries systems

& technology group, IBM, "We are investing heavily on Unix."

"The Unix server wars will be fought on a new battle ground-economic

efficiency," predicts Dan Olds, founding principal of Gabriel Consulting

Group, which conducted a survey designed to understand how customers are using

their midrange and larger SMP Unix servers. The survey showed that Unix server

consolidation is happening in a big way.

"It was a conscious decision on IBM's part to support the Linux

momentum. We have transferred the reliability and robustness of the Power

architecture on Linux," says Sanchez. IBM's Linux strategy is synergistic

and complementary to the Unix business. The company sees significant revenues

coming from the Linux server segment. Unix reliability coupled with the low cost

advantage of Linux is also likely to further boost IBM's leadership in the

server market.

Bhaswati Chakravorty

was hosted by IBM, in Melbourne

The Perfect SMB Strategy

IBM's pSeries Roadmap

• Virtualize the entire ecosystem
• Commit to openness through support for open standards
• Collaborate to innovate
• Extend single server virtualization to multi-system virtualization
• Extend micro-partitioning technology to further reduce TCO and extend
  
  business flexibility

The Power Edge

• Simultaneous multi-treading
• Virtualization
• Micro-partitioning
• Dynamic logical partitioning
• Capacity upgrade on demand
• Silicon on insulator
• Copper circuitry