EMEA shows yearly server growth (in both shipments and revenue), Gartner reports-- even if the market remains below pre-downturn levels, reflecting ongoing economic concerns within EMEA regions. 

Q2 2011 shipments in EMEA total 611000 units-- with 5% Y-o-Y growth and vendor revenues totalling $3.69Bn (15.2% Y-o-Y growth). 

Gartner says "Revenue growth outpacing shipment growth shows the strength in some high-end platforms."

All key segments see revenue growth in Q2 2011-- X86 systems grow by 16.2%, while the "other" CPU category grows by 36.2% (with Read more...

A large number of big budget IT projects within both public and private sectors are "ticking time bombs" potentially spinning out of control, University of Oxford researchers say. 

The research involves the analysis of 1500 global IT projects (with an average size of $170M) within the last 10 years-- with 1 in 6 projects either going over budget by an average of 200% or over running by an average of 70%. 

The conclusion? "IT projects routinely cost investors and taxpayers billions of dollars, pounds and euros in excess spending and destroyed benefits, Read more...

by Beth Vanni, Director at Market Intelligence Amazon Consulting

When your children are young, it’s hard as a parent to not sit longingly and dream about all the wonderful things your kids could be, could learn, could accomplish.  Can they apply themselves in school enough to be a doctor?  Will they do humanitarian work?  Is pro sports in their future? How can they live up to their full potential, and how can I as a parent help them do that?

The long-standing debate about whether the generalist VAR business model is a thing of the past reminds me of this brain teaser.   Should VARs “grow up” and invest in a datacenter to become an MSP?  Should they hire hot-shot consulting resources and build a pre-sales assessment practice?  Can they invest in specialized IT solutions for a niche vertical market?  Every vendor has their own aspirations for their smaller, regional VARs – to both protect themselves and their run rate (albeit often small) product resale business but also to help the partners survive and be successful.  

In the June CRNTech article reviewing the myriad of software development platforms available for ISVs today it occurred to me that we rarely expect VARs to build application expertise.  Over the years, the vendor community seems to have agreed that understanding the business demands of end-users at the application layer gives solution providers the greatest insights and leverage.  But, the traditional VAR and ISV communities seem to have remained pretty darned separate and distinct over the years. Read more...

Gartner reports Q2 2011 W. European PC shipments total 12.7M-- with a -18.9% Y-o-Y decline, down from Q2 2010 shipments totals of 15.6M.

Both consumer and professional sector suffer from weak demand as the market faces inventory issues, thanks to overstocking back in 2010.

Netbooks see a -53% Y-o-Y decrease in shipments as the entire mobile PC market declines by 20.4%, while desktop PC shipments decline by -15.4% Y-o-Y.

The above reflects the consumer PC market in general, whose Q2 2011 sees the market's biggest decline-- -27% Y-o-Y.

Softening Read more...