Although Data General Corp recorded an impressive 71.7% gain in fourth quarter earnings to $17m, however revenue was pegged to $404m, up 20%, due to slower sales of its Clariion RAID disk subsystems (CI No 3,280). Sales increased 50% year over year but tailed off late in the year due to OEMs transitioning to the newer Fibre Channel products, say analysts at Merrill Lynch & Co. Fibre Channel sales reportedly exceeded $20m the fourth quarter following $5m sales in the June quarter. The brokerage thinks Clariion’s biggest customer, Hewlett-Packard Co, which accounts for 45% of Clariion sales, is also starting to substitute its own AutoRAID products at its low end and is using EMC Corp at the high end, squeezing Clariion in the middle. Merrill Lynch says Clariion sales to HP increased only 10% for the year to $220m. Aviion server sales were up 15% on the period a year ago, the older Motorola 88000-based products now account for only 25% of sales. According to IDC, DG is the leading vendor of NT servers which cost between $50,000 and $100,000. DG sold some 50 NUMA servers worth over $10m.
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