Server shipments up in Q3

Sun sees 72 per cent growth

Worldwide server and workstation sales saw healthy growth in the third quarter thanks to easing component shortages.

The top three server vendors, Compaq, Dell and IBM, accounted for 58 per cent of the server market - which rose 16.5 per cent to top one million units, Dataquest says.

Compaq grabbed 23.7 per cent of total sales, shipping 276,000 units, while IBM lost two per cent market share - it sold 165,000 servers, giving it 16.4 per cent. Dell grew 41 per cent in the quarter, giving it 15 per cent of sales, while HP fell two per cent to 11 per cent. Sun sold 72 per cent more servers than in Q3 the previous year - 72,000, giving it seven per cent market share.

"IBM's supply chain constraints were reduced during the third quarter, allowing it to address the backlog carried over from the previous quarter," said Jeffrey Hewitt, principal analyst for Gartner Dataquest's Servers Worldwide program.

"Dell benefited from an aggressive marketing strategy on operating systems and advantageous price/performance ratios on lower-end systems."

Workstation sales rose 3.9 per cent year on year to 381,800 - and recovered slightly from the Rambus shortages that plagued it in Q2.

Dell was the top workstation vendor with 23.6 market share, up 41 per cent on the previous year. It was followed by Sun with 21 per cent, HP, 18 per cent, and Compaq and IBM, with 14 per cent and ten per cent respectively.

"Some vendors experienced minor shortages in graphics cards in the third quarter," said Pia Rieppo, principal analyst for Dataquest Workstations Worldwide program. But, overall, Dataquest said the industry was on track to meet its forecasted eight to nine percent growth rate from 1999 to 2000. ®

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