The economic downturn and the widespread failure of dotcoms have
caused global server sales to fall 23.4%, compared to a year
ago.
Figures for the third quarter, released by analyst group Gartner,
showed worldwide server sales had slumped from £9.97bn a year ago
to £7.64bn.
The US was hit the hardest in the third quarter, dropping 29.4%
from the same period last year.
In worrying news for Sun Microsystems, which is one of the largest
vendors of Unix-based servers, sales of computers running the
high-end operating system have dropped faster than the overall
market.
Lower end systems with Intel chips, which generally run either
Microsoft Windows or Linux, held up better.
IBM continued to dominate the market with £2.3bn in sales, more
than double that of each of its closest rivals, Compaq, Sun and HP,
which had sales of around £1bn apiece.
IBM increased its market share by 7% to 30.3% and HP's share
climbed by a modest 0.1% to 13.1%. Sun's share, however, dipped by
3.6% to 13.7%, while Compaq's share slipped by 1.9% to 13.8%.
To shore up its market-leading position IBM was the first to react
to the downturn in server sales, announcing plans to offer zero
percent finance to solution providers selling its xSeries servers
to clients.
The promotion, which will run until 31 December this year, will
allow clients working direct with IBM or via IBM business partners
to apply for the interest-free financing on the servers, as well as
any direct-attached storage and PCs sold as part of a solution with
the servers.