Sun Microsystems Outshines Enterprise Disk Systems Market with Fourth Consecutive Quarter of Strong Revenue Growth, According to Latest Analyst Data

Latest Report by Leading Analyst Firm Shows Solid Growth for Total Disk Storage Market in Third Quarter Despite Economic Slowdown; Sun Grew Faster than All Major Storage Vendors with 25% Year-over-Year Revenue Increase
SANTA CLARA, CALIF. - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced its fourth consecutive quarter of significant revenue growth for total disk storage systems sales with a 25% year-over-year (YoY) increase in factory revenue, as highlighted in the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker, 3Q08. Sun was atop the list in year-over-year revenue growth for external disk systems during the third quarter of 2008 and outperformed the overall market by almost two times.

The total worldwide disk systems market continued to grow year-over-year at 1.1% with revenues totaling $6.6 billion, amid mounting economic pressures and tighter IT budgets. IDC commented in a recent press release, “Numerous IDC surveys of IT users suggest that storage is one of a few hardware categories where buyers are reluctant to cut spending.”

Sun’s disk storage systems outgrew the market for the second straight quarter in many major revenue categories for Q3CY2008:

* Sun delivered total market revenue growth of over 25% year-over-year, its fourth consecutive quarter of YoY revenue growth (recent IDC reports show that Sun saw 31.4% YoY revenue growth for Q2CY2008);
* Demonstrated 16.1% growth in external disk systems revenue, growing faster than almost all major storage vendors and nearly two times that of the market (8.8%);
* Saw growth across Sun’s entire disk systems portfolio;
* Maintained the top spot for UNIX disk storage shipments for five years (20 consecutive quarters) in a row.

“Sun’s continued storage revenue growth is yet another proof point that the economics and simplicity that Open Storage systems deliver is fast catching on with customers, partners and the industry,” said John Fowler, executive vice president, Systems Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “With the recently announced Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage family, upcoming solid state disk (SSD) products and other unique innovations, we are well-positioned for continued growth of our industry-leading Open Storage solutions.”