Sun reels in Big Blue fish in the Unix pond

IBM insists that its share of the Unix server market is unassailable, despite losing key staff to Sun Microsystems' server division in recent months.

Sun's new marketing director Shanker Trivedi was head of marketing for IBM's RS/6000 business unit until he joined Sun in July. He said that Sun was planning to grow its share at a rate in excess of the overall server market, thereby stealing market share from IBM.

'Obviously we want to increase the share we have of this market and this can only be done at the expense of our competitors. At first you take business from the smaller players and then you move on.'

Paul Weaver, IBM UK server product manager, described Sun's plans to win business from IBM as ridiculous. 'We're gaining share at Sun's expense, according to IDC figures. If anything, it's Sun's market share that is up for grabs.'

In response to the accusation that much of IBM's server business is legacy, Weaver claimed new business accounts for about 50 per cent of its market share.

Digital's workstation business, Digital Systems, has forced most of its direct US Vars to buy from distribution. Two hundred of the 230 US Vars that deal in Digital's Alpha chip-based systems must buy from five regional industrial distributors.