Australian server market slumps in Q3

The Australian and New Zealand server market slumped significantly in the third quarter of 2001, slipping a massive 14 per cent compared to the previous quarter.

According to Gartner's Dataquest, Q2 saw a fairly cautious return of business confidence, but economic uncertainty following September 11 led to the Q3 slump.

Gartner's regional server program manager Matthew Boon said the server market, which is the bellweather of corporate confidence, is struggling.

"The Asia-Pacific region server market in total has experienced a tough quarter with some of the region's stalwarts starting to show declining growth levels," he said.

Conditions for vendor market share in Australia have been aggressive with some shifts in the top five.

Boon said Hewlett-Packard has reclaimed the number four spot from Sun Microsystems while the top three were Compaq, Dell and IBM respectively.

"This quarter has seen Compaq face continued pressure from Dell and a re-invigorated IBM. Fortunately its strong presence and marketing dominance in Australia has seen Compaq retain its crown in the server space," he said.

>From an overall revenue perspective in Australia, Boon said the top five vendors are IBM, Compaq, HP, Sun and Dell in order of market share.

"While Sun beat HP from a RISC-only revenue perspective, HP would have to be pleased to snare the number three position from Sun in terms of total server revenue in Australia during Q3," he said.