(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| Growth Slackens in Japan's PC Server Market
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February 1, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Personal computer server shipments are starting
to slacken in the Japanese market after expanding at an explosive rate.
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Despite the slowdown, PC servers will maintain double-digit growth through
1999.
These were the findings of a market survey by Nikkei Market Access focusing
on PC servers and UNIX servers in Japan.
Domestic shipments of PC servers reached 195,800 units
in fiscal 1998 (April 1998 to March 1999), an increase of 16.5 percent
over the previous year. In fiscal 1999, shipments are expected to increase
by 14.9 percent year-on-year to 225,000 units.
At the beginning of fiscal 1998, vendors of PC servers projected high
growth rates of 30 percent or more. But Japan's prolonged economic recession
curbed corporate investment in information systems, and the growth rate
did not meet expectations.
Another factor that is holding back growth is a winding down of active
investment in client-server systems by large corporations and mid-size
companies. Moves to rationalize office operations through file sharing
and printer sharing, and to implement groupware and intranets for enterprise-wide
access to information, are largely completed.
To maintain growth in the future, vendors will need to find new customers
in small and mid-size companies, as well as promoting the use of PC
servers among existing users.
In the UNIX server market, Nikkei Market Access predicts that growth
will continue at current levels. Shipments in fiscal 1998 increased
by 12.0 percent to 45,700 units. The projection for fiscal 1999 is a
12.9 percent expansion to 51,600 units.
The switch from UNIX servers to PC servers has not occurred to the extent
expected by PC server vendors. In fact, with the trend toward companies
integrating their server systems, there has been a continuing shift
toward large UNIX servers, a market which will likely expand further
in dollar terms.
Related story: JEIDA Expects FY99 Computer Hardware Market to
Grow 2 Pct.
(Nikkei
Market Access)
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