Worldwide sales of server systems rose 17.5% in the
second quarter of this year - halting a nine-quarter decline,
according to market research firm IDC's Worldwide Server
Tracker.
Users may have been tempted by competitive pricing with IDC
noting that average selling prices dropped significantly. IDC noted
that manufacturers revenues were up just 0.2% compared with the
same quarter last year, at $10.2bn (£6.49bn).
The market for Linux-based servers grew at 39.5% year on year to
reach $650m, while blade server revenue reached $119m, up almost
eight times than in the second quarter of 2002.
IBM took over from Hewlett-Packard as the leading server
supplier overall with 10.1% year-on-year revenue growth compared
with HP's 0.4% growth.
Although HP leads IBM in each of the three main Intel-standard,
Unix and Linux markets, IBM has considerable sales from proprietary
server hardware such as the iSeries, making it the overall market
leader.
Sun Microsystems saw sales fall by 18.7% over the year and is
being challenged for its third position by Dell, whose sales grew
10% over the year, according to IDC figures.
However, IDC said HP retained its revenue lead in the Linux
server and Windows server markets, followed by Sun Microsystems,
Dell and Fujitsu Siemens.
The x86 server market (comprising systems based on
microprocessors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices) grew more
than 21% year on year in terms of unit shipments and was up 9% in
terms of revenues.
IDC said the numbers show strength in the sale of servers priced
at less than $25,000, reflecting continued momentum in small and
midsized business segments and demand in departmental and workgroup
environments at larger enterprises.
There were also signs of slow, but steady replacement of servers
purchased in 1999 and 2000 - when the worldwide server market
posted record revenues.
"The Unix server segment is the single largest slice of the
entire worldwide server market, with more than 40% of the revenue
share in 2Q03," said Lloyd Cohen, research director of Global
Enterprise Server Solutions at IDC.
"Unix systems, along with the associated software and services
tied to these solutions, continue to drive much of the overall
enterprise IT spending."
Linda Rosencrancewrites for
Computerworld