[Info-vax] Gabriel Consulting Group surveys customers about Oracle's recent actions

[Keith Parris]

On 5/13/2011 7:13 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
> In the heydays of Alpha, SPARC was seen as the underdog with no future.

Those days have returned.

> But SPARC got its second life when IA64 came around and became the new
> underdog. And now others are poking fun at IA64.

Not so much anymore. Itanium had a slow start, but Itanium server sales 
surpassed SPARC several years ago.

Gartner reported (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1561014) these 
server numbers for last year (2010):

         Market Share    Revenue Growth    Unit Growth
HP           31.4%            18.9%           17.3%
IBM          30.8%             9.2%           12.8%
Dell         14.7%            31.3%           21.3%
Oracle/Sun    6.3%           -17.7%          -31.6%
Fujitsu       4.4%             5.1%           18.8%

Gartner added: "HP and IBM are tussling for outright market leadership 
as both vendors achieved revenues of over $15 billion for 2010, both 
with a market share of 31 percent. HP achieved a stronger year on year 
growth rate of 18.9 percent to IBM’s 9.2 percent."

Of the 4th quarter of 2010, Gartner said: "Of the top five global 
vendors, IBM, HP and Dell delivered double-digit growth rates in terms 
of revenue, while Oracle and Fujitsu experienced revenue declines... In 
server shipments, HP remained the worldwide leader for the fourth 
quarter of 2010 with a year-on-year shipment increase of 6.9 percent."

Clabby Analytics (http://www.clabbyanalytics.com/uploads/SPARCfinal.pdf) 
says:

"Sun’s share of the Unix market had been steadily declining for three 
years — and there is little reason to believe that Oracle’s acquisition 
of Sun will reverse that trend."

And they "question whether Oracle should continue to invest in the SPARC 
architecture" and that they "believe that Oracle will discontinue its 
SPARC architecture within three years."