Quanta Computer has obtained white-box server orders from Goldman Sachs to establish data centers, with shipments to begin soon, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers. Quanta declined to comment.

Quanta has landed white-box orders for servers to set up data centers from Google, Amazon and Facebook, and Goldman Sachs is the first business user of its white-box servers, posing a competitive threat to vendors such as Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell, the sources indicated.

However, vendors indicated that business users, as compared with Google, Amazon and Facebook, have stronger requirements for information security and more need for after-sales maintenance services due to limited IT management staff. White-box vendors lack the ability to provide after-sales services and are therefore less competitive, the vendors claimed.

Cloud computing technology is driving enterprises to use cloud storage in place of in-house servers to reduce costs, and this will increase demand for rented data center space provided by Google, Amazon and others and thereby drive demand for white-box servers, the supply chain makers said.