INDUSTRY

ARMONK, NY -- IBM grew faster than Dell in high-end Intel(R)-based server sales in the fourth quarter of 2001, according to data published by industry analyst International Data Corporation (IDC). The report shows that IBM turned in strong gains in revenue and market share in the high-end four- and eight-way Intel-based product segment, while Dell either declined or remained essentially flat. In eight-way Intel-based servers, IBM gained 7.2 points of revenue share in the fourth quarter of 2001 compared with the fourth quarter of 2000, while Dell lost 3.1 points, IDC data indicates. In the same period, IBM grew revenue in eight-way servers by 14.5 percent, while Dell declined sharply by 45 percent, IDC data indicates. In four-way servers, IBM gained 6.5 points of share in the fourth quarter of 2001 compared with the year-ago period, while Dell gained only 0.5 points of share, IDC data indicates. For the full year, IBM gained 3.9 points of share, compared to Dell's nearly flat 0.3 points. The high end of Intel server sales is becoming increasingly important as companies deploy key workloads on these industry-standard machines. Building on its success in the fourth quarter, IBM made a bold move in the Intel space recently with the introduction of the powerful IBM eServer xSeries(TM) 440 with Enterprise X-Architecture(TM) technology. The result of a three-year development program, the new system supports scaling to 16 processors and is designed to handle the demands of the corporate data center. "The fourth quarter results confirm the benefits of IBM's Project eLiza program, which brings mainframe-inspired, self-managing technologies to Intel-based servers, rather than just commodity parts," said Deepak Advani, vice president, IBM eServer xSeries. "These advanced features, such as Software Rejuvenation, Capacity Manager and Real Time Diagnostics, are only available from IBM -- our competitors don't offer them. We believe our new eServer x440 will help accelerate IBM's technology leadership in this important segment of the market." IBM also led in overall worldwide server sales, with 32.4 percent revenue share in the fourth quarter, IDC data shows.