Server shipments shoot up but below forecasts

Dell makes ground on Compaq

By Linda Harrison, 3rd August 2000

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

Worldwide server shipments grew 11 per cent in the previous quarter thanks to the Web.

According to a report by Dataquest, 955,412 servers were shifted in the quarter ending in june - including a strong demand for front-end Web servers fuelled by e-business. There was also a boost due to sales in low-end servers (less than $25,000).

But numbers were still below the projected growth of 21 per cent for server growth in 2000.

Sun and Dell topped the league for sales increases in this area. Dell saw 36 per cent growth with 135,000 shipments - giving it 14 per cent market share and putting it second only to Compaq. Sun's sales grew 71 per cent to 75,000 units, putting it in fifth place with eight per cent of the market.

Compaq held onto top place with 280,000 shipments, with 30 per cent market share and 15 per cent growth. IBM and Hewlett-Packard were in third and fourth place respectively. IBM saw minus growth of 17 per cent, with 14 per cent market share, while HP had 7 per cent growth with 12 per cent of the server market.

Workstation shipments grew 14 per cent to 440,463 units - driven largely by entry-level systems. Dataquest analysts said the second quarter increase was due to the "bleeding" in of sales to the PC market, and thus represented a rather artificial growth rate.

"Differentiation of high-end PCs and entry-level workstations is getting increasingly blurred," said Pia Rieppo, Dataquest principal analyst for worldstations worldwide.

"Many of the entry-level workstations being shipped in the second quarter this year are getting sold for PC uses as opposed for traditional workstation uses in design and analysis by technical and creative professionals."

Dell shoved passed Sun and HP to become the top vendor in workstations for the quarter - it gained 23 per cent of shipments, with 100,000 shipments and 77 per cent growth.

HP came second, with 21 per cent of the market, 90,000 shipments and 11 per cent growth. It was followed by Sun, Compaq and IBM. ®