Friday, September 13, 2013

IBM maintains server market lead in the Philippines


MANILA, Philippines — Technology behemoth IBM has maintained its lead in the local server market for the second quarter of the year, leading other vendors to corner a strong 39.2-percent overall revenue market share in the Philippines, according to research firm IDC.

Based on IDC’s Asia Pacific Quarterly Enterprise Server Tracker for the period, IBM led other vendors in the high-end enterprise server market with a commanding 65.6 percent market share, as well as the RISC/EPIC server market with a 55.2 percent revenue share.

IBM attributes its current leadership in the server space to its “Smarter Computing” thrust, which it claims delivers “strong performance in higher-value segments powered by System z and Power systems.”

“Crucial also was the good performance of our entry-level server business, that continues to grow with the bullish Philippine economy,” said Ireen Catane, country executive for systems and technology group, IBM Philippines. “For the rest of 2013, we will carry on with our commitment to enable smarter businesses in the Philippines anchored on our Smarter Computing approach.”

Introduced in 2011, IBM’s Smarter Computing approach promotes the use of enterprise systems to unleash innovation in the cloud, unlock the power of Big Data, and safeguard the security of critical corporate information.

In the Philippines, IBM said there is an increased demand for the smarter computing approach to IT to adapt to and capitalize on new trends that have emerged through the growth of mobile, social and online technologies.

But though the company continues to lead the server market, IBM had been forced to play second in certain server categories, such as in x86 servers which it used to lead in the first quarter of 2013, and the non-x86 server market where it once held the top spot sometime in 2012.

IBM’s overall market share also fell by 9.1 percentage points sequentially in the 2nd quarter of the year, though its first-half performance continues to be strong.

With businesses looking to Asia for growth, IBM said firms are inclined to consider their systems to drive efficiencies, cut costs and better manage their operations, on top of being able to run advanced analytics, an area which the 100-year-old company is intensely focusing on for the next few years under its Smarter Planet umbrella strategy.

Last year, IBM Philippines made the bold prediction that the country is well-positioned to be the world’s analytics hub, with many skilled and qualified Filipino workers moving into this higher-value work from traditional voice-based outsourced services.

“My aspiration is for Filipinos to capture majority of the global analytics market, because we’re very well-positioned to do that,” said IBM Philippines President and Country Manager Mariels Almeda-Winhoffer.

With IBM as one of its pioneers, business analytics is an emerging field in enterprise technology where organizations are given the ability to mine and analyze their voluminous mounds of corporate data in order to make quicker and more insightful business decisions that affect their respective bottom lines.

source: interaksyon.com