Sun's John Fowler: 'We are back!'

According to the latest IDC numbers, Sun slipped into third place ahead of Dell, with 12.9 percent of the worldwide server market and revenue growth of 15.5 percent in the three months ending June 30. Dell's share was 10.3 percent, down from 11.1 percent, and Dell, IBM and HP also had declining revenue. IBM's market share declined to 31 percent from 31.9 percent, and HP went down from 28.5 percent to 27.8 percent. Sun also took the top spot in worldwide Unix revenue, accounting for more than half of Unix server shipments.

In a Sun press release, John Fowler, executive vice president, Sun's systems group, said, "We can attribute our share gains to three simple things. Mass adoption of the open source Solaris operating platform drives our ecosystem and visibility. Our SPARC and x64 products are absolutely decimating the competition with world record performance. And finally, our ability to provide roadmaps based on Sun's legendary research and development lets customers rely on Sun for the entirety of their systems needs. The data is irrefutable: we are back!"

Sun is definitely showing signs of renewed life, although Fowler's statement over-rotates several degrees in his articulation of the three simple things ("mass adoption," "decimating the competition,"legendary research"). And, how long is Sun going to talk about being "back," rising from the bubble bursted ashes. However, Sun is definitely back on an upswing...