However, HP's director of critical business systems Steve Williamson said Data Action is actually going against a local trend, claiming HP is making significant inroads into Sun's install base.

"In Australia we have already signed up more than 350 customers who are running some 650 of HP's Intel Itanium 2-based Integrity Servers. We have already ported more than 5200 ISV applications to Integrity, taking us six months ahead of plan and we are still growing by the hundreds monthly," he said.

"We are very pleased that our customers are experiencing the superior benefits of running multiple operating systems on one platform."

Only this week, HP inked a A$450,000 (US$345,000) deal with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for a range of HP Integrity rx2600 and rx4640 servers.

AstraZenca Australia IS manager Michael Dennis said the move to Itanium2-based servers was a "no-brainer" because the system will have paid for itself in maintenance alone in less than two and a half years.