LONDON: Shipments of large computer servers for corporate networks and the
Internet grew by four per cent in the third quarter after two quarters of
declines, research firm Gartner Dataquest said on Thursday. The number of
servers sold rose to 267,000 from 256,000, showing demand for these large
computers was only now rebounding after sluggish investments in the first half
year when corporate customers were taking a breather after heavy spending ahead
of the millennium change, analyst Karen Benson said.
"(But) 4 percent is a far cry from the 30 per cent plus growth we
witnessed in the first half of 1999," she said.
Stronger than average growth was noted in Britain, Switzerland and the Nordic
countries.
Compaq remained market leader with a 32 per cent share, versus 34 in the
year-ago period. Of the top five, only IBM , Dell and Sun Microsystems increased
shipments year-over-year.
IBM's share climbed to 19 per cent from 18, Dell's rose to 11 from 10 per
cent and Sun doubled its market share to 8 from 4 per cent.
Hewlett-Packard, the number three server vendor in Europe, lost one
percentage point at 13 per cent.
Instead of investing in servers with Intel microprocessors, which usually
work on Windows NT software from Microsoft , enterprises increasingly invested
in Risc/Unix servers which work on non-Microsoft software.
These servers run on software such as Linux, Sun Solaris or other Unix
operating systems. They are mostly used to host Internet applications, as they
tend to be more reliable and easier to link up with other servers.
Shipments of Intel-type servers rose by one per cent in the third quarter,
while shipments of Risc/Unix servers soared by 43 per cent. The percentage
year-on-year rise had also been 43 per cent in the second quarter, Gartner
Dataquest said.
"Front-end Web and back-end engines are creating a strong demand for
powerful reliable Unix systems," Benson said.
(C) Reuters Limited 2000.