South Korea: Workstation Users' Perception and Plans, 2003

Transcription

1 End-User Analysis South Korea: Workstation Users' Perception and Plans, 2003 Abstract: South Korean organizations in various sectors were surveyed to gauge their use of technical workstations, their purchasing behaviors and their 2003 budgets. By Jennifer Wu and Suzie Low Strategic Business Imperatives Vendors should target replacement programs at company accounts whose workstations are more than 4 years old. Reduced-instruction-set-computer (RISC)-based workstation vendors, such as Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI), need to increase the "mind share" of South Korean users; more than half of workstation revenue is still derived from RISC platforms. Publication Date: 21 May 2003

2 2 South Korea: Workstation Users' Perceptions and Plans, 2003 Study Objectives In November 2002, Gartner Dataquest conducted a hardware Users' Wants and Needs survey, polling 75 qualified CIOs and IT managers across private-sector organizations, educational institutions and government agencies in South Korea. All respondents were involved in evaluating or authorizing workstation purchases, or both. This document is an extraction of data on the respondents' perceptions and plans for deploying technical workstations within their organizations. The following key findings will detail users' purchasing behaviors, perceptions and budget planning for This information will be beneficial to vendors in understanding and gaining insight into the realities of the South Korean workstation environment, where end users are targeting their budgets, and the extent to which end users are embracing new technologies. This information also will enable workstation vendors to make effective marketing and execution strategies. In addition, end users will gain a better understanding of how trends are adopted so theycanplanmoreeffectively. Key Findings: Workstation Usage Patterns and Vendor Perceptions Key findings are as follows: Eighty-seven percent of respondents installed workstations. Eighty percent of South Korean workstation users extended the life span of their machines to four years or more, with 49 percent stretching to morethanfiveyears(seefigure1). Eighty-three percent of respondents reported that they did not rent or lease any hardware or workstations (see Figure 2). The other 17 percent rented or leased hardware, but many did not rent or lease workstations. Figure 3 shows organizations that are leasing or renting hardware while leasing or renting workstations. Hewlett-Packard (HP) and IBM were perceived as leading workstation vendorsinsouthkoreaby35percentand31percent,respectively. Respondents rated service and customer support, price competitiveness and brand recognition as major factors when deciding on workstation suppliers. When respondents were asked how long they used their technical workstations before replacing them, 31 percent indicated four to five years while 49 percent kept their machines for five years or longer. Hence, the workstation life span for these South Korean organizations averaged 4.4 years. Leasing or renting technology hardware was not a favorable option for a majority (83 percent) of respondents. For those that did lease or rent, the tenure was short no more than 24 months (see Table 1) Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 21 May 2003

3 3 Figure 1 Workstation Replacement Cycle Trends More Than 5 Years 4 to 5 Years 2 to 3 Years Don't Know Percentage of Respondents Figure 2 Organizations Leasing or Renting Hardware Yes (17%) No (83%) Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 21 May 2003

4 4 South Korea: Workstation Users' Perceptions and Plans, 2003 Figure 3 Organizations Leasing or Renting Hardware That Lease or Rent Workstations Yes (46%) No (54%) Table 1 Workstation Leasing Tenure (Percentage of Respondents) Less Than 24 Months Organizations Leasing Workstations Respondents were asked to name the leading workstation vendor. Thirtyfive percent voted HP and 31 percent voted IBM. Sun Microsystems was voted by 13 percent of respondents (see Figure 4). Conversely, according to the Workstation Asia/Pacific Quarterly Statistics data, HP was the market leader and IBM wasn't in any of the top-three positions. Sun and SGI were the other major vendors, since more than half of the workstation vendor revenue in South Korea came from RISC-Unix platforms. IBM, by contrast, is not strongly focused on its RISC workstations Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 21 May 2003

5 5 Figure 4 User Perception of the Leading Workstation Vendor HP IBM Sun Others Don't Know Percentage of Respondents Key Findings: Workstation Budgets and Purchase Plans for 2003 Key findings are as follows: Ninety-two percent of respondents were planning to purchase new workstationsinthenext12months(seetable2).however,only36 percent had set aside some of their budgets for it. Respondents also indicated that these purchases would be for new and additional machines, rather than replacement of older systems. Vendors should work closely with end users to allocate portions of budgets toward workstation purchases. Thirty-six percent of respondents' organizations had workstation budgets for 2003, but the sizes varied widely. Fifteen percent of respondents claimed to have less than 10 percent of the total budget, while 11 percent had set aside as much as 19 percent of the total budget for workstation purchases. Eight percent of respondents intended to spend from 20 percent to 29 percent of their total budgets, while 3 percent had allocated more than 40 percent (see Figure 5). Service and customer support, price competitiveness and brand recognition were cited as the three most important factors when respondents selected which workstation vendors to work with (see Table3andFigure6). Forty percent of respondents were aware of Intel's Itanium IA-64 workstations, but their readiness to purchase these workstations within the next 12 months remained low (see Figure 7 and Figure 8) Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 21 May 2003

6 6 South Korea: Workstation Users' Perceptions and Plans, 2003 Table 2 User Workstation Plans During the Next 12 Months (Percentage of Respondents) New Replacement New and Replacement Planning Don't Know Total Workstation Purchase Plans Figure 5 Workstation Spending as a Percentage of the Total Hardware Budget, 2003 More Than 40 Percent (3%) 20 Percent to 29 Percent (8%) 10 Percent to 19 Percent (11%) 1 Percent to 9 Percent (15%) 0 Percent (63%) Table 3 Workstation Vendor Selection Criteria (Percentage of Respondents) Less Important Medium Importance Very Important Service and Customer Support Price Competitiveness Brand Recognition Provides End-to-End Solutions Reliability of the Supplier Established Relationship With Vendor Ease of Doing Business With Breadth of Product Offerings Established Relationship With Vendors' Resellers Brand Loyalty Recommendations Order-Tracking Facilities Online Ordering Facilities Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 21 May 2003

7 7 Figure 6 Workstation Vendor Selection Criteria by Level of Importance Service and Customer Support Price Competitiveness Brand Recognition Provides End-to-End Solutions Reliability of the Supplier Established Relationship With Vendor Ease of Doing Business With Breadth of Product Offerings Established Relationship With Vendors' Resellers Brand Loyalty Recommendations Order-Tracking Facilities Online Ordering Facilities Percentage of Respondents Figure 7 Percentage That Are Aware of Intel's Itanium IA-64 Workstations Yes (39%) No (61%) Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 21 May 2003

8 8 South Korea: Workstation Users' Perceptions and Plans, 2003 Figure 8 Willingness to Purchase New Workstations (Itanium) in the Next 12 Months High (13%) Medium (33%) Low (54%) Research Methodology The survey was designed by Gartner Dataquest's IT hardware Asia/Pacific team (a copy is available on request). Organizations were selected from Gartner Dataquest's Asia/Pacific database and sorted in alphabetical order. This provided a degree of randomness in terms of industry, IT infrastructure, staff size and budget allocation. All incomplete surveys were discarded. Gartner Dataquest's Singapore and Sydney, Australia, Primary Research Centers conducted telephone interviews, which ranged from 20 minutes to 40 minutes in duration. Also, to ensure a reasonable sample of respondents across each major industry group, interviews were conducted randomly until each group contained at least five responses per country (10 in China and India). The major industry groups were as follows: Communications/transportation/utilities Distribution Manufacturing Government/education/healthcare Financial services Mining, agriculture and construction/other 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 21 May 2003

9 9 Definition The "technical workstation" used in the survey refers to traditional workstations that are typically high-end complex instruction set computer (CISC), Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) or RISC-based CPU architectures with high-performance graphics, operating systems and system architectures. In general, workstations must include integrated floating-point processing, integrated networking, a 32-bit or 64-bit multitasking operating system, and configurations that support highresolution graphics capabilities as well as 3-D graphics functionality. This includes traditional Unix workstations (for example, Linux) as well as workstations running Windows NT/2000 or other advanced operating systems. Key Issue What strategies are vendors implementing to succeed in this market? 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 21 May 2003

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