back to article White box server makers flounder BUT big brands shine

Server spending is up by a third globally with purveyors of clouds buying up boxes to bulk out data centres, mid-sized enterprises refreshing their own estates and component shortages playing a part too. This is according to Gartner, which pegged factory revenues at $16.69bn for the first quarter of 2018, up 33.4 per cent year …

  1. dnicholas

    Crooks

    The DRAM cartels need smashing. Hopefully China's fabbing plans come to fruition and we see some actual competition in the memory market

  2. x 7

    Do white box servers exist?

    I've never seen an unbranded server yet, except for ones I've assembled from bits.

    All the servers I've seen have been branded, one way or the other. I'm convinced "white box" servers are close to mythological

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Do white box servers exist?

      Intel is still making parts for them, (and keeping a big chunk of the margin from them). Supermicro used to sort of be in that space, but they put on big boy pants and pushed their own brand. Anything AMD was till Epyc and the one off antitrust editions.

      Most companies I've worked at want the comfort of a big brand, and big companies can force them to give competitive prices. The whitebox crew tend to get sandwiched between DIY shops building their own hardware and scale out production in the big players.

      That said, if your company isn't big enough to force HP to issue a Gavin Newsom Signature Series tailored to your 85 degree data center, a whitebox builder may be willing to put together a smaller order for less then the combined hourly bill rate of your Dev Ops team.

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Do white box servers exist?

      They exist, however they tend to be limited to specific markets as they tend to be made by smaller system builders - hence if you have need for more than a couple of dozen servers you may well have problems finding a supplier outside of the majors. Unless you are at the other extreme, like Facebook and others where your size and requirements justify you running your own internal whitebox assembly operation.

      However, a more interesting question to ask is whether with the move to cloud there will be much of a market for whitebox cloud offerings.

    3. Roj Blake Silver badge

      Re: Do white box servers exist?

      White box in this context doesn't necessarily mean unbranded. It usually refers to the Far Eastern companies that have traditionally made servers for the big names but are now selling their own kit as well - so Wiwynn, Inspur, Quanta etc

  3. The Original Steve

    Intel and Supermicro

    We're a mid sized MSP and switched to Intel and Supermicro last year. 20% cheaper than Dell or HPE for the same spec and warranty is too good for us to kiss out on. Good competitive edge / cheaper for our clients.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    White box server makers flounder BUT big brands shine

    I like big BUTs and I cannot lie...

    Hehe

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