HP tries to squeeze everybody out

Is HP getting too big for the footware?

HP proudly boasts now of being the largest IT company in the world and that thrilling breakthrough as inspired HP execs to come out with bigger and more grandiose claims. The latest, from Tuesday's Tech@Work conference in Barcelona is that the company "sells more x86 servers than IBM, Fujitsu Siemens and Dell combined". At least that was the boast of HP's vice-president of marketing for what HP calls, industry standard servers, Paul Gottsegen. Such a claim demands further examination. "Yes, it's true," he told ZDNet.co.uk, "by a very tiny margin." According to Gottsegen, HP has 42 percent of the x86 server market, which is a fairly stunning position to be in. While their servers have been steadily increasing market share, it is fair to say that HP's main target was IBM, but shifted for a time to Dell. Now it is difficult to see exactly who the company is going after in the industry standard server space. But also note that this market leadership position is based on measuring servers by their value and not by pure numbers. In the number of servers installed, HP fares less well. No, instead it has to be satisfied with most of the cash.