Simplification plans drive server market

Firms trying to simplify their IT infrastructure are driving corporate demand for new servers in Europe, according to research from IDC.

The analyst's figures show that factory revenues for the server market grew at 2.4 per cent to $4bn in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. This was the lowest growth rate recorded in nine consecutive quarters of positive revenue growth, said IDC.

Unit shipments grew 9.6 per cent to 522,000, which the analyst said was the lowest growth in more than two years, following from high double-digit annual growth in the previous quarters.

The more mature western European server market grew slowest in the EMEA region, posting just 0.8 per cent revenue growth and 8.2 per cent unit growth.

In contrast, central and eastern Europe continued to be the fastest growing area of demand, with shipments up 20 per cent on the same period last year.

Daniel Fleischer, senior research analyst in IDC's European enterprise server solutions team, said in a statement: "We have seen good growth particularly in the two-way rack-optimised space and, of course, blades. This is consistent with a strong enterprise sector although the contribution of the SMB to market growth should not be underestimated."

Fleischer said many end users have built highly complex and difficult to manage infrastructures and, as a result, the desire to simplify their IT infrastructure is driving demand from corporates at this point.

IDC said the market for x86 servers continues to outpace the Risc/Unix server growth, with x86 shipments growing at 9.7 per cent compared to declines in the Risc/Unix market.

On the vendor front, HP regained pole position in the EMEA server rankings, driven by good growth in Itanium and x86 market segments. IBM has fallen to number two in IDC's server rankings, while Sun remains ahead of Dell in fourth.