Market Report: Custom Systems Mostly Steady
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The percentage of solution providers reporting that they are either building or selling custom systems rebounded slightly in the first quarter, according to CRN's Monthly Solution Provider Survey.
That is not unusual for the start of the new year in a market that otherwise appeared to be holding mostly steady year over year, but was down quarter to quarter.
The chart at right shows that during the first quarter, 52.4 percent of the respondents reported either building or selling custom PC servers. That was below the third-quarter peak last year of 54.4 percent, but up from the 49.8 percent that were engaged with custom servers during 1Q 2005.
Custom desktop activity followed a similar, though more muted, trend. Custom desktop activity rose to 54.8 percent in the first quarter of 2006 from 52.2 percent in the first quarter of 2005.
While a higher percentage of solution providers were building and selling custom systems, they weren't necessarily selling more units.
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Custom desktop systems felt pressure from rising notebook sales, slowing refresh cycle and pricing issues, as the bottom right chart indicates. The percentage of solution providers indicating "white box" was their best-selling desktop rose in the first quarter over the prior-year period to 26.7 percent, but was down sharply from the fourth quarter, when it peaked last year at 29.5 percent.
Custom-built PC servers were also under some pressure from branded systems. About 21.2 percent of solution providers cited custom servers as their best sellers during the first quarter, which was about steady with the first quarter last year, but down from the 26.9 percent citing custom servers in the fourth quarter of 2005.
Components, meanwhile, appeared to be in good supply, according to the March poll. Below, the percentage of respondents reporting few or no supply problems for motherboards was 88 percent. The supply of memory also appeared good, with 86 percent reporting few or no problems.
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