Research by IT watcher Gartner shows IBM continuing to lead the worldwide market in 2006, with a 32.2% revenue share, followed by Hewlett-Packard (HP) with 28.2% and Sun Microsystems with almost 10%. Sun was the only vendor to gain revenue share for the year.

However, in terms of server unit shipments, HP retained its dominance, with almost 30% of the pie followed by Dell and IBM with 22.5% and 16%, respectively. One name, in particular, stood out as making a huge gain in the top ten: server start-up Rackable Systems experienced a 68% increase in units shipped.

The blade server segment continued to experience high growth rates, with revenues increasing by almost 37% and shipments up 33%. IBM and HP maintained their lead over the year, with IBM’s share of 41% being chased by HP’s 32.5%.