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World spent US$7.7bn on cloud in Q2, and that was during a lull

Established enterprise players are coining it, with hardly a white-box vendor in sight

World spent US$7.7b on cloud in Q2, and that was during a soon-to-end lull in construction of hyperscale data centres.

So says market-watcher IDC, which in its new Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker says sales of servers, switches and storage destined for use in public and private clouds grew by 14.5 per cent year over year to $7.7 billion in the second quarter of 2016.

But the firm says this was a slow quarter because it didn't include hyperscale shopping for hyperscale builds. Once the planet's big bit barn builders get moving again, expect even nicer growth numbers. Having said that, the firm says sales to public clouds rose 14.9 per cent to $4.6 billion. Which is far from shabby.

Kit destined for private clouds hauled in $3.1bn, up 14 per cent.

“Traditional” servers and stuff that won't get the cloud treatment declined 6.1 per cent year on year.

The vendors doing best out of this look awful familiar: HPE is on top of the pile, followed by Dell although that order will be reversed once fourth-placed EMC's numbers are counted as Dell cash. Interestingly, only one white-box vendor typically associated with hyperscale clouds makes IDC's list of the top ten vendors. That vendor is China's server-maker Inspur.

Here's the tale of the tape.

Top 5 Vendor Groups, Worldwide Cloud IT Infrastructure Vendor Revenue, Q2 2016 (Revenues are in Millions, Excludes double counting of storage and servers)

Vendor Group

2Q16 Revenue (US$M)

2Q16 Market Share

2Q15 Revenue (US$M)

2Q15 Market Share

2Q16/2Q15 Revenue Growth

1. Hewlett Packard Enterprise

$1,262

16.4%

$1,103

16.4%

14.4%

2. Dell

$1,010

13.1%

$682

10.1%

48.2%

3. Cisco

$846

11.0%

$642

9.5%

31.8%

4. EMC

$543

7.0%

$488

7.2%

11.3%

5. Lenovo*

$258

3.3%

$203

3.0%

26.6%

5. NetApp*

$251

3.3%

$252

3.7%

-0.4%

5. IBM*

$229

3.0%

$330

4.9%

-30.8%

5. Huawei*

$226

2.9%

$163

2.4%

38.0%

5. Inspur*

$196

2.5%

$130

1.9%

50.4%

ODM Direct

$1,519

19.7%

$1,690

25.1%

-10.1%

Others

$1,375

17.8%

$1,050

15.6%

30.9%

Total

$7,713

100%

$6,734

100%

14.5%

IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, October 2016

* Table Note: Lenovo, NetApp, IBM, Huawei, Inspur all ranked number 5 in 2Q16 in a statistical tie. IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide cloud IT infrastructure market when there is less than one percent difference in the revenue share of two or more vendors.

When The Register speaks to enterprise kit-makers about their prospects, they often talk about cloud hardly having gotten started. IDC's numbers reflect that and also show there are some stragglers finding it hard to hop on the cloud bandwagon.

NetApp's static position can't be welcome, with IBM's drop perhaps forgiveable given the divestment of its server business to Lenovo. And of course heeeeerre comes Huawei, fresh from launching new cloud kit and, as always, cashed up and ready to rumble. ®

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