Finance sector leads server spending spree

The financial services industry, including the investment services, banking and insurance sectors, led all vertical markets in worldwide server spending in 2006, according to Gartner.

The analyst said that the financial services industry accounted for 25.1 per cent of worldwide server revenue in 2006, and 28.3 per cent in the EMEA region.

The communication market was a distant number two for server revenue with 13.5 per cent of global revenue, while the government sector was the number three vertical with 11.5 per cent.

In terms of vendors, IBM led the way with 47.9 per cent share of revenue in EMEA, as well as being the leading vendor in the financial services market with 44.6 per cent of server revenue in 2006.

HP was the second placed vendor in this market with a 26.7 per cent share, followed by Sun Microsystems in third place.

"The financial services market has been the investment leader for all IT spending, and the server market is no exception," said Kiyomi Yamada, senior research analyst at Gartner.

"In 2006 many financial institutions faced challenges for operational risk management and regulatory requirements. This led to structural changes, and resulted in more server sales."