Linux, Unix to gain over Windows in India

BANGALORE: While globally, the server market is moving away from Unix and shifting to Linux and Windows based servers, the Indian market is bucking the trend and is witnessing the steady growth of Unix servers along with other two.

Announcing this at a briefing, HP customer solutions group enterprise marketing and alliance director, Pallab Talukdar added, "India is the fastest growing non-X-86 market in Asia Pacific. IDC predicts a CAGR of 18 percent for Unix, 15 percent for Windows and 45 percent for Linux OS in 2005."

He attributed this trend to the fact that Indian companies were adopting Linux cautiously. "It has not become mainstream yet," he added. Companies like ONGC, Idea Cellular, BSNL, Ranbaxy and Asian Paints are among those who have chosen HP's Unix servers.

Talukdar said that HP maintained its lead in the mid-range server market and recorded a 104 percent growth in Q2 this year, compared to Q2 2003 in the high-end server market. The company shipped 232 units of mid-range servers from April to June this year, with its Integrity server line seeing a 50 percent increase in revenues this quarter versus last year. According to him, the increase was due to growth in verticals like telecom, oil, finance and high performance technical computing segments.

The Integrity rx4640 and Alpha Es45 together accounted for about 42 percent of total HP sales in the mid-range category. HP reported revenues of $16.2 million from their mid-range server segment in Q2 2004; a 45 percent jump compared to last year.

On the issue of HP's discontinuation of Itanium workstations, Talukdar said, "This move was taken so that HP can focus on chips capable of running both 32-bit and 64-bit. Most entry level work stations are going in for 64 bit processors."