First-Quarter Server Shipments Increase 0.6 Percent
By Peter J. Brennan
San Jose, California, April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Shipments of servers, the super-fast computers that run networks, increased 0.6 percent worldwide in the first quarter, helped by a boost in the U.S., marketing researcher Dataquest Inc. said
Worldwide shipments rose to 1.09 million servers from 1.08 million a year ago, Dataquest spokesman Tom McCall said. U.S. shipments increased 7.6 percent to 419,622, according to the San Jose, California-based company, a unit of Gartner Inc.
Businesses aren't ready to spend on technology products unless absolutely crucial, analyst Shahin Naftchi said in a Dataquest press release. The U.S. market appears to be stabilizing and the next two quarters will be crucial to determine whether a rebound is occurring, Dataquest said.
Compaq Computer Corp.'s shipments rose 1.6 percent to 248,201 as it maintained its worldwide market share of 23 percent, Dataquest said. Dell Computer Corp.'s shipments rose 14 percent to 193,407 and boosted its market share to 18 percent from 16 percent.
Shipments declined at the next three largest server makers: International Business Machines Corp. fell 1.4 percent, Hewlett- Packard Co. was off 13 percent, and Sun Microsystems Inc. fell 1.2 percent.
Hewlett-Packard, which is acquiring Compaq, had the biggest drop in market share, falling to 8.6 percent from 10 percent a year ago.
Houston-based Compaq's shares rose 12 cents to $10.27 in early afternoon trading and have fallen 43 percent in the past year. Austin, Texas-based Dell dropped 17 cents to $25.71. IBM, based in Armonk, New York, fell 67 cents to $84.05.
Sun Microsystems, based in Santa Clara, California, rose 5 cents to $8.10 and have dropped 53 percent in the past year. Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard's shares climbed 5 cents to $17.01 |
