Intel sees growth in some server markets

Intel's Pat Gelsinger remains cautiously optimistic

Intel has reported that the general doom and gloom affecting many parts of the computer market is not hurting sales in some server applications.

Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, said during the launch of the Xeon 5500 processor that some server areas are holding up well. He cited high performance computing and large scale datacentres as two examples.

"The downturn affects everything, including servers, but servers are relatively down less than other areas of the market," said Gelsinger.

"We continue to see strength in some sectors, like large datacentres and high performance computing. Overall, it is healthier than the unhealthy state of the market."

Overall server sales exceeded expectations for three of the four quarters last year, according to Gelsinger.

Virtualisation growth was also not a serious factor in server sales, as it represents only around 10 per cent of the server capacity today. While growth was strong, Gelsinger warned that there is still a long way to go.

Gelsinger also confirmed the future of the Itanium processor. The chip is on track for at least two more upgrades, and systems using the chip are being sold in volume by partners such as HP.