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Dell makes headway in server market

But still in fourth place

Dell regained a healthy chunk of the server market according to the analysts at IDC, suggesting "the new Dell" push has taken a foothold.

Dell's revenue for Q2 jumped a little over 20 per cent compared with Q2 last year. At its current rate for growth it could soon be pushing Sun for the number three spot on the server charts. But IBM and HP, as always, dominate.

Overall, revenue for the second quarter in worldwide server sales grew 6.3 per cent over last year to $13.1bn. According to IDC, it marks the best performing Q2 since the market peaked in 2000.

Server shipments bounced back from three years of sluggish growth, increasing 6.1 per cent year over year in the second quarter. IDC attributes the turnaround to an improved refresh cycle - and an expansion of new distributed computing workload deployments across the market.

IBM remains the number one vendor, holding 31 per cent of market share. The company's factory revenue was about $4bn during the second quarter, earning the company a 6.4 per cent revenue increase year-over-year. Big Blue's revenue was helped by sales of System z mainframes, which had a four per cent revenue growth over last year and accounted for 9.5 per cent of all server revenue in Q2. IBM's System x and System p systems were also able revenue performers.

Hewlett-Packard took the number two spot, grabbing 28.2 per cent of the market. HP's revenue increased eight per cent over Q2 06, ringing up about $3.71bn in factory revenue. The company's bottom-line was boosted by sales of HP's ProLiant and blade server products.

Sun Microsystems took third place, controlling 13 per cent of the worldwide server market. Server revenue increased 5.6 per cent over the same period last year, totaling $1.71bn.

Dell remains in fourth, despite a hefty 20.2 per cent jump in revenue. Dell holds on to 11.6 per cent of the market, banking $1.53bn in factory revenue.

Fujitsu Siemens, the last of the major players in the market, dropped 2.3 per cent of revenue in Q2 07 over last year, earning $542m and holding 4.1 per cent of the market.

Breaking down by operating system platform, Windows continues to lead the pack, accounting for 38.2 per cent of all server revenue in the quarter at $5bn. Unix retained second place, accounting for 31.7 per cent of server revenues. Linux had its fifth consecutive quarter of growth, with a 19 per cent bump at $1.8bn, reaching 13.6 per cent of total server spending.

The blade server market remains hot, accounting for $875m in the second quarter and representing 6.7 per cent of server revenue. HP held on to its number one spot in the blade market with 47.2 per cent of the market share. IBM was number two at 32.3 per cent of the market. IDC seems smitten:

"Blade servers continue to be the fastest growing segment of the worldwide server market. Customers are increasing their blade deployments and vendors are broadening the blades product portfolio," said IDC analyst, Jed Scaramella. "IDC believes blades are in the next wave of product evolution and customer adoption. As IT organizations become more familiar with the platform, they are able to deploy blades in IT environments that are suited to take advantage the management capabilities, as well as the cost and serviceability benefits." ®

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