Upfront
Agreements
Hits and misses
HP
IBM
Leasing
Sun
Who's the fastest in the land?

Upfront

Server market accelerates as new workloads and a strong refresh cycle drive server demand in the enterprise
According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew 6.3% year over year to $13.1 billion in the second quarter of 2007. This is the fifth consecutive quarter of positive revenue growth and the highest Q2 server revenue since the market peaked in 2000. After three years of slowing unit shipments growth, server shipments grew 6.1% year over year in 2Q07 driven by an improved refresh cycle and an expansion of new distributed computing workload deployments across the market. Volume systems represented the primary driver for market growth in 2Q07 with revenue growth improving to 11.0% year over year in the second quarter, which is the highest growth rate for this critical market segment since 3Q05. Revenue for midrange enterprise servers increased 0.2% year over year and the high-end enterprise server market showed a 1.7% increase year over year. This is the third consecutive quarter that all three server market segments have experienced positive revenue growth.

IBM held onto its number 1 spot in the worldwide server systems market with 31.0% market share in factory revenue for 2Q07, growing factory revenue by 6.4% year over year. This growth was driven by solid performance from its System x, System z, and System p servers. HP maintained the number 2 spot with 28.2% share for the quarter, growing revenue 8.0% compared to 2Q06. HP’s growth stemmed from strong ProLiant server and BladeSystem performance. Sun grew server revenue 5.6% year over year and maintains the number 3 ranking with 13.1% factory revenue market share in the quarter. Sun continues to experienced strong demand for its T1000 and T2000 Niagara-based systems as well as its x86 offerings. Although it continues to hold the number 4 position in the market, Dell experienced the most robust growth of any leading vendor growing factory revenue 20.2% year over year as its new enterprise strategy shows business progress.

Linux servers posted the fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating revenue growth, with year-over-year revenue growth of 19.0%, for a total of $1.8 billion in the quarter. Linux servers now represent 13.6% of all server revenue, up from 12.1% a year ago. Microsoft Windows server revenue was $5.0 billion in 2Q07, showing 18.7% year-over-year growth and gaining 4.0 points of revenue market share over 2Q06 and comprising 38.2% of all server revenue in the quarter. Windows servers account for the single largest segment of spending, by operating system, in the worldwide server market. Unix servers experienced a modest 4.0% revenue decline when compared with 2Q06. The high-end enterprise segment of the Unix market was strongest of all three segments (volume, midrange enterprise and high-end enterprise), as worldwide Unix revenues totaled $4.2 billion in 2Q07, representing 31.7% of quarterly server spending. Unix servers account for the second-largest segment of spending, by operating system in the worldwide server market.

Visit www.idc.com.



ELFA annual survey shows steady growth, profitability in 2006
The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) released the results of its 2007 Annual Equipment Finance Report and Survey of Industry Activity report, showing strong performance in the commercial finance sector for the previous year. Survey respondents report new business volume increased 12% in 2006 to over $125 billion, depicting a positive outlook for U.S. businesses as they continue to invest in capital equipment. More than 78% of respondents experienced positive growth in new business volume for 2006. The volume of non-lease products was over 50% again in 2006. Year over year business volume grew for each organization type with bank volume increasing 19.4%, captive organizations experiencing 6.1% volume growth and independents and financial services organizations reporting growth of 6.7%. Industry member respondents also report that profitability is steady as seen by an average return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA) of 13.6% and 1.6%, respectively, within reasonable historical ranges.

By end-user industry, the top five performance categories include:
* Industrial/Manufacturing (12.7% up from 12.5% in 2005)
* Services: data processing, admin support, repair (11.8% compared to 13.1% in 2005)
* Construction (11.6% up from 10.9% the previous year)
* Healthcare (9.4% up from 9.0% in 2005)
* Wholesale/retail (9.1% compared to 10.3% the previous year)
Visit www.elfaonline.org.
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Agreements

Canon U.S.A. and Barr Systems sign MEAP licensing agreement
Canon U.S.A. Inc., and Barr Systems, LLC announced that Barr Systems will license Canon’s innovative Multifunctional Embedded Application Platform (MEAP) Software Developers Kit. Using the MEAP SDK, Barr will design and develop an interface between the Barr print server software and Canon imageRUNNER MFP devices to facilitate secure printing, input to user-defined Barr print server processes, and device resource accounting. The agreement and subsequent development will help customers leverage the power and investment of their Barr applications while providing information security and cost accounting tools.
Visit www.barrsystems.com or www.developersupport.canon.com.

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Hits and misses

Former CIT asset manager gets 3 years for computer theft
A former asset manager at CIT Group's Jacksonville, FL, office was sentenced to three years in prison for stealing over $600,000 worth of computers from the company. Kaveh Niakan, 44, pleaded guilty to two counts of grand theft in return for prosecutors dropping more than 30 similar charges involving equipment from CIT Group. Niakan was arrested on Feb. 20, 2005 and charged with three first-degree felonies after the company discovered that he diverted company assets for his own gain. He was terminated from CIT in August 2004 when the investigation began. One of Niakan's responsibilities at CIT was to accept leased merchandise upon its return to the company and then arrange for delivery and sale of it to authorized remarketing companies. Niakan would instead sell returned equipment to unauthorized companies, diverting money from CIT while making a profit for himself.  It is estimated Niakan diverted approximately $640,000 worth of assets, mostly in computers, while employed at CIT. Niakan agreed to pay $300,000 in restitution.


Maryland man indicted in $32 million computer equipment leasing scheme
A Maryland man has been indicted by a grand jury for mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice arising out of a scheme to defraud an equipment leasing company, financial institutions and a government consulting company of $32 million. According to the 23-count indictment, from March 2001 to July 2004, Alan B. Fabian, a certified public accountant, caused Strategic Partners International LLC and later, Strategic Partners International, Inc., companies that he formed (collectively, SPI), to enter into sale-leaseback transactions to purportedly purchase $32 million in computer hardware and software, when in fact SPI either never purchased such equipment or purchased substantially less expensive equipment. The indictment is currently under seal, and the leasing and finance companies that fell victim to the fraud have not been named. Fabian falsely represented that SPI, Inc. was a subsidiary of his employer company, when in fact his employer had no knowledge of the company. Fabian executed corporate guaranties on behalf of his employer purporting to obligate his employer to pay any debt owed by SPI from the sale-leaseback transactions. Knowing that he had purported to obligate his employer to pay any debt owed on the leases, Fabian defaulted on 11 leases in July 2004.
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HP

HP continues 'Print 2.0' with $300m campaign
Hewlett-Packard has launched a $300 million global marketing campaign to spur the second phase of its Print 2.0 initiative. Launched in May, Print 2.0 is an ongoing effort to reposition the company in the digital and Web-based printing market. The campaign targets the consumer market, as well as small and mid-sized businesses with interactive Web features. To kick off the next phase of campaign, HP hosted a two-day conference that detailed the new features. The consumer push is anchored by a site featuring Gwen Stefani that lets users mash some of the singer's licensed materials with their own content to print items like personalized greeting cards and CD labels. Other Web-based features include brand-identity tools geared toward small and mid-sized businesses, like customized business cards and brochures based on professional templates. In addition, Patrick Scaglia, HP CTO for the imaging and printing group, has launched a blog that discusses Print 2.0 efforts. The company also launched a wiki feature for consumers to give feedback in real time and communicate with other users.
Visit www.hp.com.
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IBM

IBM buys WebDialogs to bolster its UC middleware client
IBM announced it has acquired Web-conferencing company WebDialogs and introduced a new version of its unified communications client Sametime.  With the acquisition of WebDialogs, IBM plans to add Web conferencing as a software-as-a-service offering within the Lotus Sametime UC client. The new combined service will be called Lotus Sametime Unyte. On Sametime, the company said there would be three versions: entry, standard and advanced. Lotus Notes customers will get the upgrade at no additional charge.  IBM also introduced a new middleware product called Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony, which is scheduled to go to beta early next year, with general availability expected in the middle of the year. The new product, developed in partnership with Siemens, is meant to integrate PBX systems from multiple vendors, making it possible to leverage software-based unified communications across the system.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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Leasing

HP Financial Services, Maritz negotiate IT leasing deal
HP Financial Services announced it has won a leasing contract from Maritz Inc. to provide as-needed access to a wide range of HP products, including PCs, printers and servers. The contract is valued at up to $5 million annually. St. Louis-based Maritz is an integrated performance improvement, incentive travel and market research services company. By terms of its leasing contract with HP Financial Services, Maritz can order – as the company needs them – HP desktop or notebook computers, HP ProLiant servers, enterprise storage services, printers and software as well as other equipment from OfficeMax Inc., an HP value-added reseller.
Visit www.hp.com.
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Sun

Sun courts developers
Sun Microsystems Inc. has ambitious plans for the commercial and open-source versions of its Solaris operating system, hoping to achieve for Solaris the kind of ubiquity already enjoyed by Java. Sun's Java programming language, which debuted in 1995, is present in most of today's PCs, mobile devices and embedded systems. The vendor is now seeking that same kind of omnipresence for Solaris, its flavor of Unix. Sun intends to take the operating system into markets where it hasn't traditionally been a force, such as desktop and embedded systems. The vendor is also keen to position OpenSolaris as a real alternative to Linux. Sun is preparing to release OpenSolaris binaries early next year in a distribution code-named "Project Indiana" that will be similar to Linux distributions. The work, which is getting under way in the OpenSolaris community, is aimed at creating a single CD installation of the basic OS and desktop environment, giving developers the option to install additional software from network repositories. Developers also will be able to create limited releases of the distribution targeted at attendees of a particular event. The whole idea behind Indiana is to build more of a developer community around Solaris.
Visit www.sun.com.
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Who's the fastest in the land?

IBM claims benchmark honors over HP
IBM is trumpeting that its latest POWER6 processor-based Unix server is the world's fastest at processing technical and commercial applications. And it's combined this with a sideswipe at HP, saying that its System p 570 benchmark results are significantly better than HP's equivalent servers. HP in contrast focuses more on the wider issue of price-performance and performance-per-watt.  IBM's results were obtained by running benchmarks on single core, four-, eight- and 16-core servers running either Linux or the IBM AIX.  IBM claimed server performance leadership in four sets of benchmarks, including those measuring speed and system throughput. HP doesn't claim that its systems are faster. Instead, it focuses on cost, and performance per watt issues. For example, comparing its systems to IBM's previous-generation Power5-based p5 575, HP said that its Integrity Superdome delivered 95 percent of the performance of a cluster of 16 IBM systems at a total system cost that was $1.8 million less expensive.
Visit www.ibm.com or www.hp.com.
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