The French installed base of Unix systems totalled 51,400 at the end of 1988, representing 250,000 terminals and worth $835m according to consultancy Pierre Audouin Conseil SA. Market leaders were Bull SA, Sun Microsystems, Apollo Computer and Hewlett-Packard, together accounting for 52% of the market by value, up from 44% in 1987. Bull was the leader with 13.18%, followed by 12.53% for Sun, 9.5% for Hewlett-Packard, 6.33% for Altos, 5.5% for Apollo – so together, Hewlett and Apollo leapfrog Bull into number one spot – 4.09% for SMH SA, 3.6% for Olivetti Logabax – selling mainly AT&T 3B machines, 3.49% for IBM, 2.99% for Matra Datasysteme – up for grabs now that Matra is effectively out of the computer business, 2.84% for Texas Instruments, a lowly 2.57% for DEC, 2.47% for Cetia SA – and 30.91% for all the rest. Surprises? Unisys Corp and NCR Corp are clearly not making the same impact in France that they are elsewhere. In volume terms only Sun was over the 10% mark. The consultant reckons that shipments last year soared to 21,200 systems against 13,200 in 1987, a growth of 61%, which was exactly the rate recorded for 1987 over 1986. Will it keep up the pace this year? Audoin thinks not, suggesting that it will moderate to 48% – compared with an increase of just 11% for all hardware ships. By value Unix systems also grew to 7.8% of sales in France last year, up from 5.9% in 1987. Particularly important, large accounts are now aware of Unix, and over 60% of respondents to the survey believed that business applications would be the most important Unix market in 1989.
