Following the economic downturn in 2001 and 2002, and modest growth in 2003, the worldwide market for high-performance technical servers – a category that includes supercomputers – grew by 30% in 2004 to reach $7.25 billion. A new IDC study details the 2004 expansion and predicts continued growth for this strategic market.
“More high performance computing (HPC) users are seeing their budgets restored to pre-recession levels or even expanded, and new users are entering the market, especially in lower-price point segments,” said Earl Joseph, vice president of Technical Computing Systems at IDC. “The HPC market's two-year growth spurt is heavily related to the continuing economic recovery, especially for research and development, which has increased buyer confidence and budget levels for traditional HPC customers. At the same time, systems priced at under $250,000, and especially those priced below $50,000, experienced very strong growth.”
The largest growth categories were for clusters and low-end servers. In 2004, clusters represented 37% of overall market revenues, or $2.7 billion. An in-depth analysis of segment revenue for clusters revealed double-digit growth across the board, with the largest increase (30%) in the technical capability segment that includes the largest clusters.
“Future growth of the HPC market will be more moderate than in 2004, as customers follow the traditional path of adopting evolving technologies,” added Chris Willard, vice president of Technical Computing Systems at IDC. “But IDC expects stronger growth to continue for clusters and low-end servers, as hardware and software technologies for these products continue to improve.”
Key findings in the study include:
- The overall technical server market grew from $5.6 billion in 2003 to reach $7.25 billion in 2004.
- The previous high point for the technical server market was in the year 2000, when the market reached $6.1 billion.
- Clusters from tier 1 and tier 2 vendors grew to represent 46% of the overall market in the fourth quarter of 2004.
- The low end of the market, for systems priced at under $50,000, grew by 65%.
- Revenue for large capacity systems, called “Enterprise Systems” and selling for over $1 million, grew by 45%.
The new study, Worldwide Technical Server 4Q04 Vendor Shares (IDC #33218) provides a summary and analysis of high-performance systems sales for the fourth quarter of 2004, in support of detailed data provided in IDC's Worldwide High-Performance and Technical Midrange Server QView product. A detailed analysis of leading vendors in the high-performance technical server market is included.