Non-Intel server market looking up: IDC

Balaka Baruah Aggarwal

NEW DELHI: The sales of non-Intel server market have started picking up during the last two quarters, according to the findings of IDC. In the JFM quarter of 2002, the sales for the RISC/UNIX market stood at $37.6 million while in the last quarter of 2001, sales stood at $37.7 million as against the preceding quarters where sales stood at $30.2 million during JAS, at $26.9 million for AMJ and at $32.4 million for JFM 01.






The rise in the non-Intel server market is indicative of the economic recovery as corporates begin to start spending in integrating their disparate networks across the country--traditionally a space where the non-Intel servers have had a stronger market presence.





The spending in the segment has essentially been driven by the financial and telecom sector, says Vasu Anisetti, Manager, Computing products, IDC. The pattern is particularly true in the retail banking sector where banks like Canara Bank, Bank of India and State Bank of India work towards integrating their networks at the core in a bid to keep pace with technology set by the likes of ICICI and HDFC with their ATM machines and online banking facilities.





Comparatively, on an year on year basis the figures for the non-Intel server market for 2000 stood at $38.7 million in JFM, $40.8 million during AMJ, $ 44.8 million during JAS, and $48.3 million during OND. The server market boomed during 2000, which coincided with the rise of the dotcom phenomenon. Towards the end of the year when the bubble began to burst, the server industry, particularly those at the core of the networks, took a sharp dip.





The Intel server market has witnessed moderate growth during the last two years. The figures for 2000 are $29.7 million for Q1, $25.6 million for Q2, $38.3 million for Q3, $36.7 million for Q4 as against the year 2001 where the figures for the Intel server market stood at $45.3. million for Q1, $37.8 million for Q2, $36.7 million for Q3, $40.0 million for Q4 and the figure for Q1 2002 stood at $35 .5 million. Intel has traditionally been a strong player in the client-server kind of network and the steady growth reflects the slow growth of the PC market.





With the non-Intel server market now looking up, there has been a shift in alliances amongst systems integrators and vendors as each one tries to maximize on the strength of the other. While traditionally Wipro has been partnering with Sun almost exclusively, and IBM with HCL, now we see that IBM is trying to align with Wipro and Sun with HCL. HCL has a strong government presence and Sun is keen to leverage on that strength while IBM also has a good presence in the government sector, which Wipro can capitalize on.