According to the latest Server Quarterly Report from Dell'Oro Group, white box server shipments continued to grow at a rapid pace in the first quarter, increasing 41% year on year, with the first quarter growth led principally by Google and Amazon, although Facebook and Microsoft are expected to increase their spending in the second quarter of 2017.
Highlights from Dell'Oro's server report for the first quarter of 2017 include:
1. Overall cloud data centre expenditure is projected to remain strong for the remainder of the year, although it is forecast to be uneven during the year across the major cloud providers Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook.2. The cloud providers are expected to continue to build-out data centres at a high rate and to invest in the latest server technologies based on the Intel Purley platform and 25 Gbit/s single-lane SerDes technology.
3. Most of the major U.S.-based branded vendors, led by Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Dell Technologies, experienced quarter over quarter and year on year shipment declines due to a number of factors, including server migration from the enterprise/on premise to the cloud, typical first quarter weakness, and a pause in server purchases ahead of the Intel Purley server refresh cycle, which is expected in the second half of 2017.
Commenting on the report, Baron Fung, senior business analysis manager at Dell'Oro Group, noted, "Dell'Oro believes that most of the growth in the server market will come from cloud deployments… while the upcoming Intel Purley refresh cycle may spur overdue spending in enterprise, it will be the cloud providers that will set the market growth pace in 2017."
