Despite the headaches that record-retention rules and compliance have caused, companies are still spending the money to play by the rules. Financial services
businesses were the top spenders on computer servers last year, accounting
for 25 percent of worldwide server sales.
The communications market came in No. 2, with 13.5 percent of global server
revenue, while the government sector notched 11.5 percent, according to new
research from Gartner.
Financial services firms, split into three camps — investment services,
banking and insurance — spent $13.2 million in 2006, with communications
shelling out $7.1 million and government coughing up $6 million for
hardware.
The sums included upgrades and new machines, said Kiyomi Yamada, senior
research analyst at Gartner.
Yamada said the financial services market is traditionally the investment
leader for all IT spending, so it’s not a shock that the banking, investment
and insurance firms spent the most on hardware that triggers and manages
transactions.
Yamada told internetnews.com that Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Sec 17a-4 and
other regulations that order businesses to store data for long periods of
time weighed heavily on the financial industry.
Banks, which typically shell out millions of dollars for large mainframes,
spent the most; after all, storing more data typically involved buying more
servers, storage arrays and other budget-busting components.
Will communications ever catch up to or eclipse financial services in server
spending?
Yamada said no, noting that frequent mergers and acquisitions in the
telecommunications market keep company numbers down, which means fewer
customers for IBM, Sun Microsystems, and HP to engage in sales discussions.
“Communications is stable, but not so great,” compared to financial
services’ IT spending, Yamada said.
However, she added that IPTV and so-called “quadruple-play” offerings,
including broadband Internet, television and telephone with wireless,
will ensure that server makers won’t starve at the doors of communications
carriers.
IBM was the leading global server seller, with a resounding 44.6 percent
market share in 2006, compared to HP’s 26.6 percent and Sun’s distant 9.2
percent share.
However, Sun boasted the greatest growth rate at 26.3 percent. Yamada said
Sun rebounded from a poor 2005 with solid sales of its Niagara multi-core
machines, as well as its ability to tempt customers with its open source
Solaris operating system and other software packages.
