Bangkok--24 Sep--IDC In a first-time collaborative effort in Asia/Pacific, IDC and program partners Cisco, HP, Intel and Microsoft have organized a multi-city road show to share the latest HPC (High Performance Computing) market trends, data and examples of how HPC is being used today in sites ranging from leading government and university centers to business and industrial firms to produce faster, superior innovation and solutions. This is part of IDC's Integrated Marketing Programs offering in Asia/Pacific which is a collaborative approach leveraging and integrating IDC's suite of products and services to provide powerful solutions to meet clients' needs for marketing intelligence and go-to-market and external communications. "Asia/Pacific is home to some of the world's largest HPC installations and is the fastest growing HPC market worldwide, propelled by strong demand from the PRC, India, Korea and Australia," said Rajnish Arora, Director, Enterprise Server Research, IDC Asia/Pacific. "The availability of commodity building blocks for HPC such as multi-core x86 Servers, and operating systems such as Linux and now Windows should help to constantly open up new market segments for HPC solutions." "Seismic analysis and reservoir simulation by petroleum services companies, digital content creation and rendering, and basic sciences research are among the key applications fuelling the HPC demand in Asia/Pacific," added Rajnish. "With Asia increasingly becoming the manufacturing hub for the global economy, EDA and CAD/CAM solutions will also contribute significantly to the strong HPC demand over the next several years." According to IDC's Worldwide High-Performance Technical Server Qview, factory revenue and unit shipments for the High Performance Computing (HPC) technical server market exhibited 10% growth in the second quarter (2Q08). Revenues grew 10% over the first quarter* and 4% compared to the same period last year to reach $2.5 billion in the second quarter. Shipments of server system units in the 2Q08 HPC market totaled 45,000, down 5% from the first quarter. The second quarter saw solid growth in the mid and high end of the market and softness in lower priced x86 servers, as evidenced by average selling prices (ASPs) that were up 16% compared to 1Q08. The 2Q08 HPC server revenue leaders were HP with 37% market share, IBM with 27%, and Dell with 16%. "Powered by their price/performance advantage, clusters now dominate all segments of HPC market. In addition, the HPC market is seeing a shift towards fatter nodes as multicore technology becomes pervasive. This is also driving requirements for larger and faster memories, along with improved interconnection technologies," said Earl Joseph, IDC Program Vice President for HPC. The HPC portion of the overall server market follows a different pattern due to the nature of spending on R&D projects. Because government and university buyers have longer-term budget cycles that are not immediately impacted by economic slow downs, economic shifts typically take more than a year to work their way into these budgets. In addition, many industrial buyers are still investing in R&D to improve their competitiveness in the tighter economy. IDC is closely watching the market to see when the broader economic softness begins to impact HPC spending.Invitation to Editor IDC cordially invites you to attend IDC's High Productivity Computing Series 2008: HPC is Going Mainstream, to be held in Thailand on November 6 (Thursday) at The Conrad Hotel Bangkok, Thailand. This is a first-time collaborative effort in Asia/Pacific, where IDC and program partners Cisco, HP, Intel and Microsoft are coming together to organize a multi-city road show to share the latest HPC market trends, data and examples of how HPC is being used today in sites ranging from leading government and university centers to business and industrial firms to produce faster, superior innovation and solutions. Join senior IDC HPC analysts Steve Conway and Earl Joseph at this event series as they discuss the fast-growing HPC marketplace and explain why 97% of IDC-surveyed businesses that have adopted HPC say they can no longer compete or survive without it. For more information about the event, please visit http://www.idc.co.th/HPC2008. If you would like to arrange for an interview with IDC's analysts or any of the conference speakers, please contact Sasithorn at 02 651 5585 Ext.113 (email: [email protected]).About IDC IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 100 countries. For more than 44 years IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting http://www.idc.com/. For press enquiries, please contact: Steve Conway Research Vice President, High Performance Computing +1-651-592-7441 [email protected]. Earl Joseph Program Vice President, High-Performance Computing +1-612-812-5798 [email protected] Sasithorn Sae-iao Marketing Executive +66-26751-5585 Ext:113 [email protected]