Sun Microsystems Inc retains its market-leading position in the Japanese workstation market, according to figures released by the Nikkei Industrial News last week: excluding its OEM partners, which include Fujitsu Ltd, Toshiba Corp, Fuji Xerox Co, Nippon Steel Co, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and other powerful players, Sun had an 11.4% share of the market last fiscal, putting it in fourth place, but if the OEM sales are included it shoots to the top with a 22.7% share; Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard Co was second with a 15.5% share, but that is down five percentage points, with the beneficiary NEC Corp, just behind with 14.5% and up 7.2 percentage points, achieved mainly as a result of installation of an army of 6,000 workstations at Daiwa Securities, as well as sales to systems houses; Sony Corp was next with a share of 11.8%, down 5.5 points, although in units, its sales increased – Sony attributes its decline to lower sales of systems based around its News workstation as the central computer; total shipments were 40% up from the year earlier at around 110,000 units.
