Ideas International's (IDEAS) Price Benchmarking Service for Servers enables users to understand and track the relative pricing competitiveness of server systems (including x86, RISC, IPF, Windows, UNIX, Linux) from tier-one server vendors across major market segments. The systems are fully configured and normalized to predefined constructs including processor, memory, disk, operating system, and support service information. These configurations are then tracked over time, presenting a complete and moving picture of the real price vendors charge for end users to acquire and maintain these servers through their typical lifecycle.