High performance server sales up 30% in 2004

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 bln, IDC found. The largest growth categories were for clusters and low-end servers. In 2004, clusters represented 37% of overall market revenues, or $2.7 bln. 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.