This IDC study, which is a translation of the Japanese report IDC #J9250105, analyzes the Japan high-performance computing (HPC) market in 2008 by server product, server system, and vendor, and provides an observation of the market size and trend. In addition, a forecast of the market from 2008 to 2013 was carried out.

The 2008 Japan HPC market showed the same performance as the previous year. It experienced positive growth in the supercomputer and x86 server segments. On the other hand, the IA-64 and reduced instruction set computer (RISC) server segments contracted. "x86 server-based cluster systems have become the mainstream in the Japan HPC market. This trend is expected to continue in the future. On the other hand, cluster systems are complicated to operate and manage and are prone to high costs. It is necessary for vendors to improve the operability and manageability and reduce operation management costs at the same time," analyzes Ikuo Takafuji, server research analyst, IDC Japan.