Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has created a new Global Channels and Marketing division, to be led by Scott Genereux, who has been promoted to senior vice president from his former role as vice president of Global Marketing. In his new position, Genereux will sit on the HDS executive committee, representing the company’s channel interests at the highest internal level, and report directly to Dave Roberson, president and chief operating officer. Genereux will retain his leadership position of the Global Marketing team, leveraging its extensive resources for the benefit of the company’s channel partners.
“Channels have become an increasingly important part of our business. Over the past few years we have made major investments to meet the unique needs of our partners and support them in successfully delivering on their customers’ storage management needs,” said Dave Roberson. “Our company mission is to ‘Partner Beyond Technology’ and today we have raised the stakes of our commitment to this mission by forming the new division. We have aggressive goals to meet and our new internal organization under Scott Genereux’s experienced leadership is what we need to do the job right.”
A 15-year HDS veteran, Genereux came on board the company as a systems engineer and was quickly promoted through the ranks for outstanding performance. Genereux served as vice president US Sales, Service, and Support, and his success in growing sales revenues by over 20 percent lead to his promotion to his most recent post as vice president of Global Marketing, Channels and Business Development.
“I firmly believe that these changes will make HDS more responsive to our customers and partners, more flexible in the way we support our field teams and better aligned to make the best possible use of our resources worldwide,” commented Genereux.
Worldwide Server Market Shows Growth Across Major Sectors in Q2
According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew at 6.9% year over year to $11.5 billion in the second quarter of 2004, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of positive overall revenue growth.
Volume server revenue grew 21% year over year and continues to represent the primary growth engine for the server market overall. At the opposite end of the computing spectrum, high-end enterprise servers showed 6.1% year-over-year revenue growth, due to demand for powerful systems for server consolidation and mission-critical data-center processing. It was the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth for high-end enterprise servers, while midrange enterprise servers declined 11.7% year over year.
“IT spending remained strong overall with server consolidation activities continuing to drive demand for high-end systems,” said Matt Eastwood, program director of Global Enterprise Server Solutions at IDC. “The pattern in spending during the quarter demonstrates the bifurcation of the server marketplace, with growth at both the high and low ends of the computing spectrum.”
Top Server Market Findings
• IBM’s OS/390 servers continued to show very strong growth in the second quarter of 2004, with 40.6% revenue growth and 35.2% unit growth compared with the second quarter of 2003, reflecting strong IT demand.
• Linux servers posted their eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth with year-over-year revenue growth of 48.9% and unit shipments up 38.2%. This was slightly slower than the Q1 revenue growth rate of 57.0% and Q1 unit growth of 46.6%.
• Unix servers experienced 20.2% unit growth year over year and sequential revenue growth of 1.8% over Q1. However, Unix server revenue declined slightly in the quarter, dipping 3% year over year.
• Microsoft Windows servers, based on x86 server hardware, showed strong growth, as revenues grew 13.2% and unit shipments grew 25.3% year over year. Quarterly revenue of $3.6 billion for Windows servers represented 31.0% of overall quarterly factory revenue.
Overall Server Market Standings by Vendor
• IBM held on to its No. 1 spot in the worldwide server systems market with 32.5% market share in factory revenue while growing factory revenue by 11.7% compared to last year’s Q2.
• In terms of unit shipments, HP was the No. 1 vendor worldwide. HP maintained the No. 2 spot in terms of factory revenue with 27.1% share, growing revenue 4.6% compared to the same period last year.
• Sun experienced strong unit shipment growth with 33.8% growth year-over-year, the largest increase for a top 5 server vendor in the second quarter. Sun also experienced sequential and year-over-year revenue growth, regaining its No. 1 position in the worldwide Unix server market.
Computer Bugs Could Proliferate in the Middle East After the Holidays
Computer users returning to work after the holidays could face an unpleasant surprise according to an advisory from network antivirus vendor Trend Micro. The summer of 2004 has seen a number of virus threats, including new variants of the Sasser.B worm and Netsky worm. As more people come back to work after July and August holidays, there is a risk that these could infect business and home computer systems if they are downloaded onto under-protected networks.
Specifically, Trend Micro outlines two potential areas of risk. The first problem is that people back from holidays often face a backlog of e-mail and in their haste to get through it can mistakenly open infected messages. The second challenge is that computer users may not have downloaded the patches needed to prevent vulnerability exploits in their operating systems.
“Historically, there have been a number of serious computer virus outbreaks in the summer months. Typically, these were launched by malicious programmers who calculated that IT specialists and network engineers would be out of the office when the virus hit, so that they could maximize the damage,” said Justin Doo, managing director, Trend Micro, Middle East and Africa. “It’s therefore essential for both home and business users to ensure that anti-virus protection is fully up-to-date and that new patches are installed, before they start tackling the backlog of unanswered e-mails.”
