World Q1 server market growth 17.6 pct - Gartner Dataquest

SAN JOSE (AFX) - Strong growth in Europe and Japan helped the global server industry grow 17.6 pct in the first quarter of 2001, according to preliminary statistics by Dataquest Inc, a unit of Gartner Inc.	    Worldwide server shipments reached 987,842 units in the first quarter, up from 839,821 units a year earlier.	    Compaq Computer Corp remained the leader with a 25 pct market share, Dell Computer Corp came second with 16.9 pct, International Business Machines Corp third with a 16.3 pct share, Hewlett-Packard Co fourth with 10.8 pct, and Sun Microsystems Inc fifth with a 7 pct share.	    "Dell's direct business model and aggressive price positioning put Dell at an advantage, especially during the current U.S. economic slow down," said Shahin Naftchi, senior analyst for servers and workstations at Gartner Dataquest.	    In the U.S., server shipments reached 325,472 in the first quarter of 2001, up 2.1 pct from a year earlier. Dell was leader with 29.1 pct of U.S. shipments, followed by Compaq with 25.7 pct, then IBM with 17.9 percent of U.S. server shipments.	    "Dell continues to gain ground in the U.S. market as it benefits from its supply chain efficiency advantage and combines it with a strong customer relationship focus," said Jeffrey Hewitt, principal analyst for Gartner Dataquest's servers worldwide program.	    "Compaq lost ground in the United States primarily to the focused attacks of opponents like Dell, while Hewlett-Packard appears to be struggling with some product feature deficiencies at the high end as well as effective sales execution," he said. 

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