Server Shipments for 2000 Surpass 1999

The worldwide server industry received a strong boost in the fourth quarter, which pushed 2000 server shipments to 3.9 million units, an increase of 14 percent over 1999 shipments, according to Dataquest Inc.

Worldwide server shipments totaled 1.1 million units in the fourth quarter of 2000, which was up 21 percent from the fourth quarter of 1999.

“Strong worldwide server shipment performance can be attributed to adequate component supplies and robust Intel Architecture server market growth,” said Shahin Naftchi, senior analyst covering servers and workstations for Gartner Dataquest’s Computing Platform Worldwide group.

Sun Microsystems and Dell showed the strongest unit increases among the top-tier vendors in 2000, with growth rates of 61 and 42 percent, respectively. For the first time, Compaq surpassed the 1 million market in units shipments for the year.

Despite concerns that the US economic slowdown may have on the server industry, the US server market performed quite well in the fourth quarter of 2000. Preliminary estimates by Gartner Dataquest show that in the fourth quarter of 2000, the US server market grew 32 percent over the fourth quarter of 1999.

“Most of the growth in the United States has been fueled by e-business and a resulting demand for front-end Web, Web application, and database servers,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, principal analyst covering servers for Gartner Dataquest’s Computing Platform Worldwide group. “Because of the length of typical server purchase cycles, the next two quarters will be critical in assessing the impact of the current economic situation on the server market.”