Beaverton, OR – April 17, 2008 – Enterprise customers see the Unix server market as almost dead heat between IBM and Hewlett-Packard, narrowly favoring IBM over HP on technology factors but slightly preferring HP on system quality and data center fit and finish, according to a new survey conducted by Gabriel Consulting Group (GCG). Sun Microsystems placed a reasonably close third.

This is the closest finish yet in GCG’s semiannual Unix Vendor Preference Survey, which grills real-world IT workers – data center personnel, IT managers, system administrators, and system architects – on a wide array of questions designed to assess their perceptions of vendor offerings and support as well as special issues such as power/ cooling, virtualization, IT trends, and future purchasing plans.

Some highlights from the 4Q’07 Unix Vendor Preference Survey:

· IBM won 14 categories and tied five, with their strongest finish in performance-based categories, including “Overall Technology”, “Raw System Performance”, and “Processor Performance”

· HP won 10 categories and tied five, surpassing IBM and Sun on ”Easiest Integration”, “Best Initial Quality”, “Observed Performance”, and “Operating System Quality” categories.

· Sun was chosen as the vendor most committed to Unix, and as having the greatest ability and desire to drive Unix innovation.

· All three vendors were competitive on operating system features and quality.

· HP and IBM finished in a virtual tie on “Best at Helping Lower TCO” and “Best at Helping Increase IT Efficiency.”

The Unix market is very large, but its growth is modest, sparking fierce vendor competition. “All three vendors are on top of their game right now, with recent new product and o/s releases.” Said Dan Olds, Principal Analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. “IBM still rules the roost on Unix technology and performance measures, but HP made a huge improvement over the past year to pull into a close second place finish on technology, and a photo-finish win on customer support criteria.”

There’s also some good news for Sun Microsystems in the survey, according to Olds “While Sun finished a reasonably close third in the Vendor-Face Off section of the survey, they topped HP and IBM on several other important survey categories, including energy efficiency, and customer loyalty questions.”

The survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2007 among 290 enterprise data center respondents who work with systems on a daily basis.

Gabriel Consulting Group is a research, analysis, and consulting firm dedicated to helping our clients achieve maximum return on their Information Technology investment. We provide pragmatic consulting services, industry analysis, and custom research designed to help our clients reach their business goals through efficient and effective use of Information Technology. GCG was founded in 2001 by Dan Olds and is based in Beaverton, Oregon.

 

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For more information contact: Gabriel Consulting Group, 12570 SW Harlequin Drive, Beaverton Oregon 97007, (503) 372-9389 www.GabrielConsultingGroup.com