While there is an opinion that strong demand for data center servers may maintain for three years at the most and subsequently there will be demand for replacement and maintenance services only, Taiwan-based ODMs generally believe that the demand will continue to grow over the next five years.
Taiwan-based ODMs mainly include Quanta Computer, Wistron, Inventec and Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), with Quanta and Wistron having obtained direct-sale OEM/ODM orders for data center servers from Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
The continued growth over the next five years will be due to fast growing demand for cloud computing-based services, including online gaming and Big Data analysis, the ODMs said. In addition, demand for cloud computing from enterprises is just beginning and expected to have large growth potential, the ODMs indicated.
However, demand for data centers will eventually decrease and the ODMs have been actively developing software and application services to match their server sales. Due to limited resources, the ODMs are focusing development of software and application services on education and healthcare applications
