The best thing that may have ever happened to IBM's pSeries is the stagnation of the Unix market. Although the demand for Unix servers is down, IBM's share of this $20 billion market grew 4 points last year, according to research firm IDC, and revenue was up 12 percent. In an interview with CRN Editor in Chief Michael Vizard, Adalio Sanchez, IBM general manager for the pSeries, details the company's strategy and the opportunities for solution providers partnering with IBM in 2004.
CRN: A lot of people talk about the Unix server market as if it's dead. Why should solution providers be paying attention to what IBM is doing in this space?
Sanchez: The pSeries is the fastest-growing platform in the Unix industry. When you look at the Unix market today, it's a $20 [billion] to $21 billion market opportunity. It's not growing very fast, but it's still the lion's share of the server market. So it's a big market, and we're growing in it. People should feel confident that a $20 billion market is not going away tomorrow.
CRN: What do you attribute that growth to?
Sanchez: We made significant investments in the Power architecture, retooled our products and brought AIX up to a leadership level. We also made investments in the underlying microelectronics. In so doing, we brought technologies down from our mainframe heritage to the Unix world. People are not only buying more performance, but also reliability, and we provided all that at less cost. As we go forward, I want to go after the performance-oriented customer segment with our Power 4, 4++and Power 5 systems coming up, and for people who want better economics that is what Linux on Power is all about. We're bringing mainframe capabilities to the Unix world, but you can't do that on Intel.
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