Good news for LNUX and others........Gartner says Euro server shipments rise 4 pct in
Q3
LONDON, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Shipments of large computer servers for corporate
networks
and the Internet grew by four percent 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 rebouding 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 percent 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 (NYSE:CPQ - news) remained market leader with a 32 percent share, versus
34 in the year-ago period. Of the top five,
only IBM (NYSE:IBM - news), Dell (NasdaqNM:DELL - news) and Sun Microsystems
(NasdaqNM:SUNW - news) increased
shipments year-over-year.
IBM's share climbed to 19 percent from 18, Dell's rose to 11 from 10 percent and Sun
doubled its market share to 8 from 4
percent.
Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HWP - news), the number three server vendor in Europe, lost
one percentage point at 13 percent.
Behind the four percent overall rise, a major shift continued to different types of servers
customers were buying.
Instead of investing in servers with Intel microprocessors, which usually work
on Windows NT software from Microsoft
(NasdaqNM:MSFT - news), 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 percent in the third quarter, while shipments
of Risc/Unix servers soared by 43
percent. The percentage year-on-year rise had also been 43 percent 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. |
