Europe's server sales slump again in Q3

Server sales in Western Europe fell for the third consecutive quarter in Q3, says Gartner Dataquest. Overall shipments fell 7 per cent to 248,000 compared to the same quarter last year, while revenues slumped 21 per cent to $3.26 billion.

But the pain doesn't seem to have been dispensed equally. Scaleable enterprise servers, where Risc/Unix systems are dominant, fell 36 per cent in units and 33 per cent in revenue. Here at least the vendors can console themselves that they're keeping the price up, even if a lot fewer customers are prepared to stump up for big ticket items right now.

Sun however can't console itself much - its own unit shipments plunged a whopping 48 per cent.

Over in the PC killing zone, Compaq lost 5 per cent in units, IBM 10 per cent and Dell gained 25 per cent. Dell is still 10,000 units shy of IBM's number two position (IBM sold approximately 45,400 units), while Compaq remains way ahead with 80,740. The whacking revenues loss underlying the unit numbers though makes it clear companies are having to collapse margins in an attempt to keep volumes up. ®