With IBM threatened to weigh in with 80486-based servers in the PS/2 line, Compaq Computer Corp told the Montgomery Securities conference that the company expects sales of its Systempro servers to accelerate next year to make the machines meaningful revenue contributors. Steve Ossad, analyst with Montgomery, reckons Systempros will do $350m to $500m next year against $150m to $180m this year. Compaq is also looking for strong international growth – it did $1,300m abroad last year – and says it will be substantially above that this year – we see much faster international growth for years to come, chairman Ben Rosen said. He also said that the company would reveal its strategy for the Japanese market, where it established a base this year, in the not-too-distant future. We have to go into the Japanese market with a very long-term strategy: we think it is a major opportunity, Rosen said.
