IBM's server business 'almost' at #1

IBM's server strategy in India has paid off. The company has shown excellent growth and is not far away from becoming the top server vendor in the country. As per the latest IDC report, IBM has managed to narrow the gap between itself and the top slot occupied by HP to fraction of a point.

IBM missed the top slot in the overall server marketshare by just 0.6% for 2003. Its marketshare is at 31.4% as against HP's 32%. However, going by its growth statistics, IBM appears to be in a stronger position to achieve the #1 slot in 2004. It has grown by 55.7% as against 18.5% of HP in terms of year-on-year revenue growth percentage.

"A strong technology roadmap for products and clear channel strategy has given our customers the assurance that IBM is here to stay," says Swarup Choudhury, VP & Country Manager - Systems Group, IBM India.

According to him, the growth came in from the banking and financial services sectors, insurance, telecom, manufacturing, high performance computing and government sector.

IBM now wants it channel partners to explore newer customer segment which has rarely been ventured in to by the traditional channels.

According to Swarup, there is a list of customer segments where partners need to focus on. This includes areas like weather forecasting, cancer and online medical research, human genome sequencing, business intelligence, security, petroleum exploration, crash testing, digital media and next generation film making.

For 2004, Swarup is determined to build stronger relationships with the channel partners by educating them to focus on solutions than just on products to earn better margins.

74% of IBM's server business has come through the channel and this is expected to increase in the coming years.

NELSON JOHNY

MUMBAI