White-box makers are also finding new opportunities since white boxes increasingly are being used in cluster servers, NieKamp said. "Where you'll find white box penetration does really well is in the oil and gas industry where they have sophisticated cluster servers," he said.
Factory revenue in the worldwide server revenue reached $11.5 billion in the second quarter of 2004, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker. Volume servers grew 21 percent, year-over-year, making them the primary growth engine for the overall server market, IDC found. High-end server revenue grew 6.1 percent compared with the same period last year, due to server consolidation and data centers, according to IDC.
White box servers represent about 22.5 percent of total server shipments in the U.S.—a number that has stayed pretty constant for the past few years, said David Daoud, research analyst at IDC.
Fortunately, white box vendors are getting increased support from technology vendors. In fact, vendors increasingly are targeting the white box channel, said Daniel. "We've seen folks recognize how important the channel is in terms of IT infrastructure and support," he said. "A lot of vendors are really interested in what white box server makers are doing."
In addition to stalwarts such as Intel, AMD, Microsoft and Seagate, smaller vendors continue to hone their white box programs and products in an effort to capture this large market. Recently, for example, CyberNet Systems began offering its channel discounts of up to 33 percent, exclusive channel online support and more marketing tools for its line of Linux-based network server software.
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