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From: irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide')
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: OPEN LOOK announced first (was: Re: Motif/Openlook, is there a trend?
Message-ID: <1917@kuling.UUCP>
Date: 13 Feb 91 10:10:11 GMT
References: <2995@sodium.ATT.COM> <823@sdrc.UUCP>
Reply-To: bt@irfu.se (Bo Thide')
Organization: Dept. of Computer Systems, Uppsala University, Sweden
Lines: 63

In article <823@sdrc.UUCP> wggabb@sdrc.UUCP (Rob Gabbard) writes:
>From article <2995@sodium.ATT.COM>, by esg@sodium.ATT.COM (Edward Gokhman):
>
>> it all depends on what hat you are wearing. If you are
>> an independent software vendor you most likely to hook up with
>> the wood behind the Sun's arrow - SPARC/SVR4/OpenWindow platform. The
>> market share is a magic magnet in software business.
>
>Yes it is - and though Sun has more market share than any other single vendor,
>add up the market shares held by HP, DEC and IBM and compare them to Sun.
>If an ISV is going to make his wares available on a variety of platforms, 
>following the OSF/Motif path make the most sense. Also, if doing 3D graphics,
>Sun has yet to integrate SunPHIGS with X. XGL is immediate mode only (no
>display list) which makes it very unattractive for a large number of 3D 
>applications. The other vendors mentioned have integrated their 3D graphics 
>packages with X. I'm sure Sun will eventually have this capability (considering
>that they were the PEX SI implementors) but it is currently an advantage the 
>other's have, and a big reason alot of people are still running SunView rather 
>than switching to OpenWindows.
>
>The opinions expressed above are those of my own and do not neccessarily reflect
>those of my employer.
>-- 
>Rob Gabbard 				    UUCP: uunet!sdrc!wggabb
>Technical Development Engineer   	INTERNET: wggabb%sdrc@uunet.uu.net
>Structural Dynamics Research Corporation

Let's look at the actual "market share" figures.

From the article "Top 10 UNIX companies" in "Unix World", December 1990:

Vendor    1990 UNIX revenue    Change from 1989
-----------------------------------------------
HP        $2.8    billion      +33%
Sun       $2.75   billion      +29%
DEC       $1.6    billion      +23%
Unisys    $1.0    billion      +25%
IBM       $0.99   billion      +32%


UNIX sales in Europe 1989 (from Dataquest):
Vendor                  Value of shipments
------------------------------------------

Others                  $1334 million
Intel-based PC UNIX      $971 million
HP/Apollo                $558 million
Sun Microsystems         $305 million
Siemens                  $296 million
Unisys                   $232 million
NCR                      $222 million
Digital Equipment        $210 million
Altos                    $191 million
Philips                  $134 million


Bo

   ^   Bo Thide'--------------------------------------------------------------
  |I|       Swedish Institute of Space Physics, S-755 91 Uppsala, Sweden
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 /|F|\        INTERNET: bt@irfu.se       UUCP: ...!uunet!sunic!irfu!bt
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