Houston, Feb 29: As businesses continue to increase spending on information technology equipment, the global server market is showing a dramatic surge, according to fourth-quarter figures from market research firm IDC.
The factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew at 11.4 per cent to USD13.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2003. This figure is up from USD 12.3 billion in the same period the year before, according to IDC. Worldwide server unit shipments grew dramatically by 22 per cent, compared with the year-ago period. A favorable exchange rate was one factor leading to the very strong quarterly results, but the market grew 3 per cent without the effects of the currency exchange rate. Since the economic downturn in 2001, sales of the servers grew for the first time in all major categories, ranging from volume servers (servers priced less than USD 25,000), midrange enterprise servers (USD 25,000 to USD 499,999) and high-end enterprise servers (USD500,000 or more). "Volume server capabilities are driving into several tiers of the computing infrastructure," said Vernon Turner, group vice president of IDC`s worldwide server group. "It shows that high-end server technology has cascaded to this market, and that infrastructure is being augmented by industry standards and IT is reaping the benefits." Bureau Report