From ServerWatch: More signs of a turnaround in server sales — this time, from industry researcher IDC. If its stats are on-target, chipmakers Intel and AMD deserve much of the credit for driving improved sales thanks to their newest processor lineups.
Market research firm IDC has released its own quarterly server figures, and came to roughly the same conclusion as its counterpart Gartner did last week: The server market is still down but stabilizing, and the worst appears to be over.
Unlike Gartner, however, IDC gives a specific reason for the turnaround: It believes powerful new processors from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and AMD (NYSE: AMD) are the reason for the improved buying outlook.
“Improved” is still a relative term, however. While IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker noted that worldwide server revenue declined 17.3 percent year-over-year to $10.4 billion in the third quarter of 2009, while unit sales fell 17.9 percent, unit sales grew a healthy 12.4 percent from Q2 of this year — the largest sequential unit growth since 2005.
“The x86 marketplace began showing expected signs of recovery in the third quarter of 2009. Customers found a convincing value proposition to refresh their systems due to strong product releases from vendors powered by the latest Intel and AMD processors,” IDC research analyst Daniel Harrington said in a statement.