http://computerworld.com.sg/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=7893&pubid=3&tab=Home&issueid=126

SINGAPORE, 17 April 2008—The financial services industry continued to lead all vertical markets in server revenue, as it accounted for 25.3 per cent of worldwide server revenue in 2007, according to Gartner. Total world server revenue in 2007 was US$54 billion.

The finance sector includes three major subsegments: investment services, banking and insurance. Global server revenue for the sector was US$13 billion.

The communications market was a distant second at 14.4 per cent, or US$7 billion. The government market was the third vertical, with 11.5 per cent of total server revenue. This amounted to US$6 billion.

In Hong Kong, financial services accounted for 43.8 per cent of Hong Kong server revenue in 2007. This is followed by the services sector which accounted for 15.2 per cent for the same period.

I wonder how much of this is from hardware refreshing projects, virtualization and consolidation projects as well as bringing online new services for existing and new markets? Related to this with the reported downturn in the finance sector, will this change? What about those banks that haven’t had the exposure that have been reported in the press? Might they continue their spending on IT, their investment?