Jon Peddie Research describes the Q3 2011 workstation market with one word-- "normal," meaning "not great, but not too bad either." And these days, "not bad" is more of a positive than, before the mid-2008 market crash.
The analyst says WW Q3 2011 workstation shipments total 1.02M units, with "robust" 20.1% Y-o-Y and 12.5% Q-o-Q growth. It is also the first quarter with shipments exceeding 1M units for 2011.
However JPR suggests we should not start celebrating yet-- unless market volatility subsides further, the analyst has "no strong confidence that the workstation market (or any market, for that matter) will find a steady pace forward."
HP remains top workstation vendor despite the earlier uncomfortable times for the Personal systems Group (PSG). Dell is at no. 2 and "lagging further," while Lenovo gains market share (and 3rd place) through its NEC joint venture.
Nvidia dominates a resilient professional graphics market, as the Quadro brand continues beating the more competitive AMD FirePro series.
Go JPR: Workstation Market Saw Some Return of Momentum in Q3 2011
