Rare boom in global computer server sales

Thursday, 08 April 2010, 21:55 IST
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Bangalore: Due to the recent economic recovery, huge technological advances and high data-handling requirements, the global computer-server industry is witnessing a rare boom in its sales. Nowadays, server functionality has become so rich, complex and varied in nature that there are whole very powerful computers dedicated to being exclusively servers. This has led many non-technical people to denote servers as being machines that run services. After a difficult 2009, server manufacturers are suddenly seeing strong growth with customers reinvesting in ageing IT infrastructures as recessionary conditions recede. IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Oracle, as well as processor makers Intel and AMD, have all rushed to bring out a range of server products says the Financial Times report. "This next wave is the biggest one of all, and highly disruptive, we are talking about a change in the way IT infrastructure is operated, produced and consumed." says Howard Elias, head of cloud services at EMC, a data storage equipment company. According to research firm IDC, Server's thumbnail part of the turn round is being driven by restricted demand after 2009 in which worldwide server revenue declined 18.9 percent to $43.2 billon. Businesses had deferred purchases of servers during the economic down times to save costs, extending the replacement cycle for products that tend to have a working lifespan of about five years. AMD, Intel's smaller rival, also introduced eight- and 12-core processors last week. In addition, server upgrades are being driven by more data-intensive applications and an explosion in cloud computing where services and data are stored and served from remote data centers.