IT firms buoyant as company computer spending surges by Paul Durman
AFTER a long period of belt-tightening, company spending on information technology is staging a strong rebound.
Hewlett-Packard (HP), the American technology group, said it had been surprised by the strength in recent sales of corporate computers, or servers. Andy Isherwood, an HP vice- president and the UK general manager for enterprise services, said: “Every four minutes we ship an industry-standard server in the UK — 3,500 a week. God knows where they all go.
“Demand is coming from the smallest SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) right up to the Vodafones and the BPs. There is no differentiation.”
Industry-standard servers, based on Intel processors, are growing in popularity because they are cheaper than the Unix systems previously favoured by many big companies. However, Sun Microsystems, the company most exposed to this trend, also claims to be enjoying strong sales.
Leslie Stretch, Sun’s UK managing director, said: “I’ve had three quarters of growth and strength. In the UK, we will have substantial year-on-year growth — possibly greater than that of any of my competitors.”
He added: “I have just signed my largest ever infrastructure contract in the UK” — a reference to Sun’s role in the recently awarded contract to create a new patient-records system for the NHS. Sun is working with BT, which was awarded two contracts worth £1.6 billion over 10 years.
Sales of business software are also strong. SAP, the German company that is the world leader in this area, is thought to have had an exceptionally good end to the year — again supported by the move to industry-standard servers. SAP said it could not comment before its next trading update.
Isherwood said e-business was finally becoming a reality. “The new-economy companies — Egg and Easy Group and Centrica and Vodafone — are seeing IT as more integral to their business. We’ve seen the internet really take off.”
One computer company not enjoying such a good year-end is IBM, for decades the dominant industry player. IBM has missed out on all four of the NHS patient-record contracts to be awarded so far.
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