Server Businesses “Thanks Portal Sites"

Internet portal site businesses are increasing their investment on hardware while reinforcing services such as game, community and avatar services.

According to a report released by the Internet industry on Thursday, The NHN which is also run by the Han Game invested three billion won in hardware such as servers during the first quarter. The NHN is planning to invest about 10 billion won in hardware 60% increase from last year; Last year the total investment in hardware was 60 billion won.

The Neo Wiz which runs the Say Club, a community website, has been increasing about 100 servers every month since they expanded their business into the game areas as well. The Neo Wiz, while preparing affiliation with several game companies, has increased investment on hardware to 16 billion won this year.: It is about twice the amount of compared to the last year`s investment.

Recently the Net Marble which has been merged with the Planners has increased 150 servers March and the NCsoft which has released new games such as Lineage 2 is looking for a service provider for expanding servers.

The reason that it is inevitable for internet companies to increase investment on hardware is that servers purchased during the internet boom in year 2000 are too slow and the internet companies have been launching new services.

In addition, as the Internet Data Center which keeps servers charges based on the space a server is occupying, so the number of internet businesses which are seeking for more efficient but smaller servers is continuously increasing. Furthermore, `Server Integration” is also in hard demand in order to efficiently control a large number of computers.

Hence, server distributors such Intel Korea have been greatly reinforcing sales activities toward internet companies.

“Server and hardware industries have been increasing sales continuously toward internet businesses. The investment in the IT which were sharply dropped in 2001 and 2002 is increasing due to the internet industry,” said Kwon Hyung-jun, a senior staff member of HP Korea.

Ho-Won Choi bestiger@donga.com