Sun maintained its leadership in workstation market revenue, contributing nearly
one-third of the total market revenue, a position gained in part by the tremendous
popularity of the company's UltraTM 5 and Ultra 10 workstations introduced earlier
this year.
Sun's Ultra workstations helped fuel positive sales and revenue growth in the entire
UNIX workstation market, enabling UNIX to take market share from Windows NT. Up
14.6 percent over the same quarter a year ago, UNIX sales accounted for 157,067
units, or 46.9 percent of the total workstation market in Q398. Dataquest's Advanced
Desktop and Workstations Quarterly Statistics Q398 report(1) also shows that UNIX
workstation revenues now account for 67.4 percent of the total workstation market,
an increase over the previous quarter, indicating that UNIX systems continue to
control sales in the mid-range and high-end technical and creative computing markets.
"The groundswell of interest in UNIX, due in large part to Sun's popular Ultra
5 and Ultra 10 workstations, demonstrates that people are embracing alternatives
to Windows NT systems," said Ken Okin, vice president and general manager,
Workstation Products at Sun Microsystems. "The Ultra 5 and Ultra 10 systems
deliver UNIX workstation reliability and performance at PC-level prices. The overwhelming
reception to these systems by the workstation community proves that technical computing
professionals prefer to purchase UNIX solutions when price is removed as an issue."
Sun furthered its command of the UNIX workstation market by again selling more workstations
than all competitors combined. Sun continues to consolidate the UNIX workstation
market around its Solaris (SPARCTM Platform Edition), taking UNIX market share away
from such competitors as Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI). In
Q398, Sun accounted for 56.3 percent of UNIX workstation market unit shipments and
43.1 percent of total UNIX workstation market revenue. Sun's closest competitor
held 15.3 percent and 24.1 percent to total UNIX shipments and revenue, respectively.
Dataquest reports that for the total workstation market, including Windows NT workstations,
SunTM workstation revenues exceeded its closest competitor, HP by $54.2 million
and were nearly three times that of its second-closest competitor, IBM. Sun workstations
accounted for 26 percent of the units shipped for the entire workstation market.
Sun unit sales increased 52.2 percent over the same period last year.
UNIX workstations are the preferred computing platform for engineers, graphics designers
and scientists who demand powerful, reliable and scalable solutions. Statistics
from the Dataquest report again confirm that Sun's workstations are the platform
of choice over HP, SGI, IBM and Compaq in these mission-critical environments, further
positioning the Solaris Operating EnvironmentTM as one of the leading operating
environments for users today.
For more information on Sun's workstation offerings please visit the company's Web
site at http://sun.com.
Additional information on this market is available in Dataquest's upcoming Market
Statistics report, Advanced Desktops and Workstations Quarterly Statistics Q398.
Please visit the company's Web site at http://www.dataquest.com.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The ComputerTM"
has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), to its position as a leading
provider of high quality hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide
intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $10 billion in
annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the World Wide
Web at http://www.sun.com.
(1) The report referenced is Dataquest's Advanced Desktop
and Workstations Quarterly Statistics Q398, WQSR-WW-MS-98Q3. @Macarlo, Inc. @Macarlo's Shareware & Web OS/2 Java Lobby Member
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