Five years ago: Compaq top in UK workstations, Sun goes down

First published 22 May, 1997.

Figures from market analyst Dataquest give Compaq a 23.5 per cent share of workstation shipments for the first quarter of this year, up from 16.1 in the fourth quarter of last year. The figures, which include Unix and Windows NT-based systems, put Sun Microsystems in second place, three per cent below Compaq. The report also gives Compaq a leading 36 per cent of the UK PC (X86-based) workstation sector.

"We are overjoyed at just how quickly we've succeeded," said Hugh Jenkins, enterprise group product manager for Compaq. "We've stormed straight in but we think it's just the tip of the iceberg. We've only really addressed two key markets, the financial and CAD markets, leaving out some specialised areas. It's certainly a good start and we hope to end the year as number one in a market that's predominantly Windows NT."

Separately, Jenkins said Microsoft's Scalability Day, which publicised Windows NT, was another nail in Unix's coffin: "The bottom line is Unix vendors have much to fear [from NT] in both workstations and servers."