Penetration of the multifarious flavours of Unix in the US market is rather broader than most observers imagined, as the following figures and forecasts from the Dataquest research house indicate:
1985 1986 1987E No. Value No. Value No. Value
Mainfrme 71 $241m 89 $303m 114 $393m
64-128us 282 $142m 423 $199m 564 $240m
32-64usr 844 $172m 130 $264m 1,700 $335m
20-32 4,347 $213m 6,224 $297m 7,689 $357m
2-20 118,448 $2,138m 142,075 $2,552m 178,791 $3,050m
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Wkstn 15,674 $517m 27,324 $836m 40,170 $1,044m
Prsnl 26,737 $98m 45,984 $162m 64,038 $224m
Tots 166,403 $3,521m 222,249 $4,413m 293,066 $5,643m
The table makes it clear that far from technical workstations dominating the Unix market, as might have been expected, it is the smaller general purpose multi-user micro – typically 68010 or 68020 – that overwhelmingly dominates the market, both by number and by value. In terms of penetration, the Dataquest figures indicate 60% growth on mainframe Unix systems by number over the three-year period, 100% in large supermicros and minis serving 64 to 128 users, 101% in the smaller ones, 77% in mid-to-low multiuser systems, 51% in low-end multiuser, 156% in workstations, and 146% in Unix personals. The growth in market value is indicated at 25% last year, and the forecast for 1987 is almost 28%. And a fair part of that is business (remember these figures are US only) that might otherwise have been expected to go straight to IBM. Little wonder then that IBM now has 1,000 people on Unix in Austin.
