New products drive Sun's growth in Middle East

Dubai: Sun Microsystems (Mena) recorded regional growth of more than 38 per cent in the last financial year.

The market has been growing approximately 25 per cent year on year in the Middle East region, according to analysts such as IDC.

Sun Microsystems has achieved faster than average growth during 2006, taking market share from vendors like IBM and HP.

Sales of new products, driven largely by Sun's software and AMD-based servers for the mid-tier market, were up by more than 40 per cent, while support services for regional customers grew at 20 per cent over the previous year.

"Our major areas of growth across the Middle East in 2006 were market share increases in key countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where customers are investing in total solutions that encompass Sun servers and storage managed by Sun software and backed up by our support services," said Chris Cornelius, Mena managing director of Sun Microsystems.

"An increasing number of regional companies are deploying our Java-based software solutions based on the open-source Solaris operating system, with an especially strong interest in areas like identity management. We are also seeing robust demand for our range of AMD-based servers, which require less energy and space in the region's costly real estate environment, and generate less heat for lower utility bills," Cornelius added.