GSHIIS

VOLVO


	Sun takes U.S. server market, IBM tops globally-IDC SAN FRANCISCO, March 14 (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc. (NasdaqNM:SUNW - news) won the top spot from International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news) in the U.S. market for powerful server computers last year but lost on another front, IDC research said on Wednesday. IBM kept its title as the main server seller worldwide and took the lead from Sun in the midrange global market for boxes running the dominant operating system, UNIX, benchmarker IDC, or International Data Corp, said in a widely watched report. ``Sun is now the No. 1 server vendor in the United States. IBM is still by far the No. 1 server vendor worldwide,'' said Vernon Turner, IDC's vice president for world wide servers, told Reuters. The revenue-based rankings confirm those by IDC rival Gartner Dataquest and settle, for the moment, a bitter and public dispute between the two companies eager for bragging rights in the high-profile market for the computers which link networks. The relatively young market for servers running Linux, an operating system that is developed collaboratively by software engineers worldwide, also did well, generating $1.7 billion for the server market last year, up 132 percent on 1999. ``We were surprised by the overall growth of the Linux market. I think Microsoft will pay attention now,'' Turner said. Microsoft Corp (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) makes the Windows NT and Windows 2000 operating systems which do especially well in the low end of the server market, where Linux has gained strength. NT server revenue for the year rose 31 percent to $13.9 billion and UNIX sales rose 14 percent for the year to $29 billion. In the UNIX market, Sun kept first place for high and low-end servers but dropped to second in the midrange for machines costing $100,000-$1 million. An IDC statement said that the total market grew seven percent to $60.2 billion in factory revenues last year, with fourth quarter sales up 14 percent to $16.7 billion. In the fourth quarter IBM led the market with 27 percent share by revenue, Compaq Computer Corp.(NYSE:CPQ - news) and Sun were tied with 16.34 and 16.32 percent, respectively, Hewlett-Packard Co.(NYSE:HWP - news) was fourth with 14 percent and Dell Computer Corp.(NasdaqNM:DELL - news) had almost 6 percent. For the year, IBM led with 23 percent, followed by Sun with 17 percent, Compaq with 16.5 percent, Hewlett-Packard with 15 percent and Dell with six percent. Back to Sun News