Second quarter revenues for the Canadian enterprise storage market were very healthy, as they increased both sequentially and year over year. Compared to the second quarter of last year, total revenues are up seven per cent. HP had a weak quarter worldwide, and its Canadian performance was no exception.
IBM was able to top HP in the DAS market. Although IBM seriously eroded HP’s share in the SAN segment, HP remains in the lead.
White box made in Canada
Personal computer demand picked up in the second quarter of 2004 over previous market expectations, which bodes extremely well for the PC market overall. Piggybacking upon the success of the PC market is a rosy outlook for the overall IT segment for the balance of 2004. Considering the slow start to the year, marred by relaxed government spending habits, a strong Q2, combined with multiple new product announcements and high reseller expectations augurs well for the market pushing forward into the second half of the year.
Vendors shipped a combined total of 875,100 PCs in calendar Q2, 73 per cent of which were desktops. Notebooks comprised 23 per cent of the total, and servers were four per cent. The Canadian white box community accounted for 36 per cent of second quarter volume.
Canadian MFP market
All four document imaging markets weathered declines in second quarter shipments. This is a seasonal phenomenon stemming from the fact that many of the large Japan-based vendors, including Konica Minolta, Ricoh and Toshiba have fiscal years ending in March. In order to boost their year-end numbers, these vendors stuffed the channel in Q1, resulting in Q2 shipments being bottlenecked.
The business multifunction market dropped eight per cent in Q2, from 11,609 units to 10,728 units. Canon retained its lead over Xerox and Konica
Minolta remained in third place.
IT Resellers
ERC conducted research on the Canadian IT Reseller market in the spring of 2004 through a targeted e-mail blast to the VAR community. Many of the respondents came from the small business segment, with 79 per cent citing fewer than 50 employees and 77 per cent with annual revenues of less than $5 million. Sixty per cent of IT resellers categorize their businesses as consulting & systems integrating, or as an IT solutions provider. The independent software vendor (ISV) category is one where nine per cent of respondents place their business models. Only eight per cent of respondents use the “reseller” category, which indicates a shift towards incorporating the services component into the business model.
