News

IDC Sees Turnaround in Server Spending

• By Scott Bekker
• October 17, 2002

IDC forecasts that in the third quarter of 2002 the standard Intel architecture server market will show growth for the first time since the beginning of 2001. Don't get too excited, the market research firm warns. After the awful first half of 2002, worldwide server sales should still be down 9 percent in 2002 compared to 2001.

"We are not saying that the server market has broken free from the economic freeze," IDC analyst Vernon Turner said in a statement. "IT enterprises are buying only the minimum amount of incremental capacity to get the job done. But this represents the first step toward improving market conditions."

Spending for the just-ended quarter should grow to $5 billion, about a 4.7 percent improvement over the year-ago quarter, IDC estimates. The United States and emerging markets in Asia and the Pacific are fueling the growth.

IDC's current forecast for long-term growth of the overall server market is a compound annual growth rate of 3 percent, bringing the total market to $63 billion in 2006. Microsoft-based server platforms will increase by nearly $5 billion to account for $19 billion of that market, IDC projects, while Linux hardware sales should triple to about $6.5 billion.