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  • Growth Slackens in Japan's PC Server Market
  • February 1, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Personal computer server shipments are starting to slacken in the Japanese market after expanding at an explosive rate.
    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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    Updated: Fri Jan 29 21:11:25 1999 PDT