SolNet And Sun Break The Ton

Services the highlight with over 30% growth

WELLINGTON New Zealand --

SolNet and Sun Microsystems have broken the ton this financial year, with revenues for the New Zealand operation of $101 million for FY01, an increase of 15% over FY00.

This total incorporates revenues from Sun product sales, post-sales support, training and professional services; as well as SolNet's complementary products, development and services offerings.

The highlight of the year is the exceptional growth shown by SolNet's development, software and services operation, with revenues climbing 32% to $17 million for FY01. SolNet's development business is based around Java, J2EE and object-oriented technologies, utilising tools and applications from companies including iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions and Actuate web-based information delivery solutions.

"We have seen a strong shift in the market this year. Companies are choosing Java and J2EE-compliant solutions for mission-critical, enterprise-scale applications because they recognise that this approach provides a significant advantage over the alternatives," says SolNet managing director Mark Botherway. "This strong trend towards Java, together with SolNet's commitment to investing in development infrastructure, resources and expertise, has led to our involvement in a number of very large development projects at major corporates and government departments, including TelstraSaturn and ACC."

"We have also been working closely with organisations such as EDS and Accenture, where we have fostered strong partnerships by demonstrating our ability to deliver high quality results within tight timeframes."

Revenues for the Sun product business grew 7% to $58 million, a pleasing result in a difficult market.

"The New Zealand market saw some flow-on effects of the dot.com collapse in the United States," says Botherway. "However, we still managed to achieve a positive result and show growth in a challenging market. In addition, IDC's research shows Sun Microsystems continued to dominate the New Zealand market for both Unix servers and storage. Our share of the Unix server market is 60%, while Sun now leads the market for external storage. We expect FY02 to be a strong year, with the rollout of Sun's next-generation UltraSPARC III servers and the Sun ONE web services architecture already generating a lot of interest amongst our customers."

Key customers include Telecom New Zealand, Air New Zealand, the Ministry of Social Policy and Clear Communications.

Overall, says Botherway, SolNet is well-positioned to capitalise on its strong position as the market picks up.

"Unlike many of our competitors, we have grown headcount despite the difficult market conditions. We now have around 120 full-time employees in New Zealand, the majority of whom are delivery-focused. We have successfully diversified and grown our business. I believe customers and prospects recognise the strength of SolNet's value proposition in architecting and delivering enterprise-scale infrastructure and solutions for the networked economy."

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