Rebound in Western European Server Market Weakening in 4Q CY04, Despite Unabated Momentum in x86 Segment

This study highlights the major findings from IDC's European Quarterly Server Tracker for the fourth quarter of 2004, specifically detailing vendor, operating system, CPU, and country trends in the combined Western European server and x86 market. In the wake of six consecutive quarters of positive growth, the performance of the Western European server market was a bit disappointing, with only 1.4% factory revenue growth recorded year on year. The shift towards x86 continued in the last quarter supporting growth on the market. "x86 servers continue to make significant headway in corporate IT infrastructures, while increasingly taking new workloads," according to Nathaniel Martinez, program manager with IDC's European Server Group. "For the second consecutive time, x86 servers generated more revenue than sales from RISC-based systems in 4Q04."