Unisys isn't the only company shipping so-called big-iron servers that can be partitioned into smaller ones. HP shipped the long-delayed ProLiant DL740 and DL760 servers in February. Prices start at $24,999 with four 1.5GHz Pentium 4 Xeon processors. NEC and IBM have similar servers. But Feverston believes Unisys' "three-year head start" on competitors in the 32-processor Intel server market gives the company a huge advantage. "All the start-up problems are a dot in our rearview mirror," he said. For "all our competitors, that's filling up their windshield." Microsoft apparently agrees. "The Unisys guys certainly are ahead of the crowd," said Jim Hebert, a general manager in Microsoft's Windows Server product management group. Still, in terms of worldwide server shipments, Unisys' claim to fame is the "other" category, ranking a lowly No. 21 in fourth-quarter 2002 market share, according to Gartner. But in terms of server revenue, Unisys made a much stronger showing, capturing the No. 6 position. "Unisys is not going to try and put out of business the high-volume kind of players," Partridge said. "Unisys has found an area where their strengths -- their background in mainframes -- play well to customers who recognise those advantages." "I think the significance of the (server announcement) is limited outside Unisys, because it has a very limited sales engine," Giga Group analyst Richard Fichera said. "This is great technology, a modular design, and it is available for an affordable price. But Unisys doesn't have the sales reach. If IBM or HP had this system, it would sell gangbusters." Betting on Windows
The server maker has sold about 1,000 of the older ES7000 systems, which are in use in about 45 countries around the world, according to Unisys. Seventy-five percent of systems are sold with 16 or more processors. Eighteen percent replace Unix servers or mainframes. About 60 percent run Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, and 80 percent run SQL Server. Around 40 percent of ES7000 servers go to new customers. One of those new customers, mentioned by Feverston, Hebert and Partridge, is JetBlue Airways. JetBlue has taken a more standardised approach to business, such as using one kind of Airbus airplane. The approach helps to simplify maintenance and parts purchasing. The company also standardised on Microsoft software and seven ES700 servers. "We've got a great customer in JetBlue," Hebert said. "If you look at the airline industry, only two are profitable. One of them is JetBlue." JetBlue could not be reached for comment. On the day last week that the press toured Unisys' labs in Blue Bell, technology managers from Turkish banks and technicians from Microsoft's Turkey location were testing a custom application running on ES servers. But there are some problems with Unisys' Windows focus, particularly as the company pushes hard on version 2003. For one thing, big businesses are more interested in the older version, and it could be for another 12 months or more before they start moving to the newer OS. "Our customer base will probably continue on Windows 2000 for a while," Feverston said.
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