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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Special Features:
THE 451 GROUP: NEXT 18 MONTHS
CRITICAL FOR GRID MARKET
The 451 Group believes there is substantial data pointing to acceleration
in
the Grid computing market, with commercialization heading toward an inflection
point. The next 18 months will be a critical period of market development for
Grid computing technologies. Over this period, the commercial viability of the
technology will mature and early-adopter customers will give way to broader
adaptation of Grids for enterprise applications both at single-site and
multisite installations. The nature of competition will also mature as vendors
integrate Grid computing technologies into existing offerings and strategies
ranging from utility computing to Web services.
These findings are outlined in a 451 Special Report -- "Grids 2004: From
Rocket Science To Business Service" -- which presents key opportunities and
challenges associated with the evolution of Grid computing over the next 18
months. This 215-page report was released by The 451 Group, an analysis firm
covering the business of emerging information technologies, and was written by
John Abbott, chief analyst; Rachel Chalmers, analyst for Grid management
software and Web services interaction; and William Fellows, principal analyst
for Grid computing architectures and technologies.
Grids 2004 is the first comprehensive look at the Grid computing space from
an
industry-competitive perspective -- examining how vendor companies and
investors will realize return on Grid technology investments and providing
insight into the path to customer traction for Grids. It includes significant
analysis of M&A within this segment and profiles the competitive positioning
of more than 30 Grid vendors -- ranging from established IT leaders to recent
startups.
Key Findings
- Grid computing developments will result in commercially viable,
mainframe-like performance and manageability across distributed systems within
the next 12 months.
- Financial services, life sciences and manufacturing verticals are the
leading adopters of Grid computing at this stage, with customer adoption
broken down as follows:
- 31 percent -- Financial services customer adoption
- 26 percent -- Life sciences customer adoption
- 18 percent -- Manufacturing customer adoption
- The Grid computing market is currently being driven mainly by cost
reduction, both in terms of utilizing spare server capacity and with customers
buying cheaper, modular, Intel-based hardware.
- Vendors agree that Grids are built, not bought; therefore, Grid computing
offers significant opportunities in consulting and professional services for
vendors that already have such resources. For those that do not, partnerships
will be needed.
- Over the period from September 2002 through September 2003, the announced
value of Grid-related M&A deals has totaled $982 million. The financial
details of three of the 10 acquisitions listed in the report were not
disclosed, which means the actual deal total for M&A in the Grid space over
this period far exceeds $1 billion.
- In the longer term, Grid computing is heading toward a convergence of
utility computing from the pricing and delivery perspective, and Web
services-based integration and virtualization techniques to enable multiple,
networked computers to be managed as one.
Companies Profiled
The 451 Group's Grids 2004 report divides Grid vendors into three primary
categories, based on the firm's assessment of both current
technology/product/service positioning and current momentum:
- Tier one Grid vendors are leading IT vendors with strong established
positions in Grid computing or strong momentum and potential to capture market
share; vendors in this category include HP, IBM, Microsoft and Sun.
- Tier two Grid vendors are leading IT vendors with strong emerging
strategies and/or technology portfolios in Grid computing, but will not
dominate overall Grid revenues in the near term; vendors in this category
include Computer Associates, Intel, Oracle, Platform Computing, SGI and
Veritas.
- Pure-play Grid vendors are emerging vendors with strong portfolios in
specific areas, but must evolve -- through rapid growth, investment or
acquisition -- to have a longer-term position in the marketplace. These
companies are further categorized by functionality -- Grid enablement, file
systems, provisioning, application decomposition, CPU scavengers and those
offering enhancements to Globus; vendors in this category include Altair,
Avaki, Axceleon, DataSynapse, Ejasent, Enigmatec, Entropia, GridFrastructure,
GridIron, GridSystems, GridXpert, Powerllel, Tsunami Research, The Mind
Electric and United Devices.
Analyst Perspective
"The critical factor is whether or not Grids can break out from the
scientific
and technical world into commercially oriented enterprises," comments John
Abbott, chief analyst of The 451 Group.
"High-performance computing users don't mind rolling up their sleeves in
order
to get something working, and their software tends to be suitable for breaking
into discrete pieces that can be executed in parallel. Enterprise users
running transaction-processing applications have different requirements and
prefer off-the-shelf technology that works predictably every time. Grid
technology is on the cusp of the transition but hasn't quite made it yet."
Report Orders
To learn more about this report contact Simon Carruthers via phone at
(212)505-3030 ext. 103.
About The 451 Group
The 451 Group is an analysis firm covering the business of emerging
information technologies for a senior executive audience. The firm delivers
timely, research-based insight that delves deeply into the dynamics and impact
of newly commercialized technologies in all major segments of the enterprise
computing marketplace.
The Group is headquartered in New York, with staff in key regional
locations,
including San Francisco and Silicon Valley, the Boston/Route 128 area and
London. For additional information on the group or to apply for a client trial
online, go to the firm's Web site: www.the451.com.
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