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| EMEA Server Market Surpassed $4 Billion for Second Consecutive Quarter in 2Q07 According to IDC's EMEA Quarterly Server Tracker, the EMEA server market continued to enjoy strong demand in 2Q07, with the fourth consecutive quarter of factory revenue growth. Sales reached more than $4 billion for the second quarter in a row, up 6% year on year. More than 600,000 servers were shipped in EMEA, an increase of 8% over the same period in 2006. Three-quarters of these servers were shipped in Western Europe. "IT managers continue to invest in consolidating their infrastructure, using virtualization to improve IT services management and business management, while considering issues of energy efficiency and green computing", said Nathaniel Martinez, program manager for European Enterprise Servers at IDC. "Renewed corporate interest in virtualized environments running on more richly configured x86 servers resulted in this segment generating 50% of the factory revenue for the first time in EMEA, with Windows- and Linux-based servers stealing market share from Unix." According to Beatriz Valle, research analyst at IDC, "The ratio of unit to revenue growth was more balanced than in recent quarters. Average selling prices remained stable due to increased price competition in the run-up to the forthcoming adoption of the quadcore technology. The server market is producing fresh partnerships and alliances between hardware and software vendors and server and chip makers, as vendors try to leverage their different technologies to increase their competitive edge." Stefania Lorenz, IDC program manager, said the Central and Eastern European region performed strongly, recording year-on-year growth of 27% and 31% in units and value, respectively. "Sales were driven by foreign direct investment, the economic and political stability in the region, the steady expansion in the SME segment, and IT investments in the healthier vertical segments - banking, business services, and telco", she said. The Middle East and Africa region, she added, regained momentum in 2Q07 to record yearly growth of 10% in shipments and 13% in revenue, with demand in the region driven by processor manufacturing and financial institutions. IDC Top Server Market Findings: · x86 servers generated 50% of the factory revenue for the first time in EMEA, surpassing the $2 billion mark, a growth of 16% year on year. Sales of enterprise servers declined in both units and revenue. · Sales of Windows servers increased 14% annually while waiting for the full impact of the Longhorn launch. Linux-based systems saw revenue grow by 34% to more than $600 million. Unix systems declined slightly, alongside weak performance in the midrange server segment. · Blade servers performed well, reaching sales of $300 million for the first time, up 12% year on year. The non-rack form factor declined in both units and revenue. · HP was the leading vendor after growing its revenue 11% annually thanks to a very strong performance across the ProLiant and Integrity lines, growing its market share one percentage point. IBM saw its revenue grow 5% over the same period last year. The System X family performed well, generating more than $400 million. · Dell performed strongly, with sales up 21%. Fujitsu Siemens also increased its sales. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Computing News :: home page |