Growth in server market cools
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The prolonged life span of modern servers – particularly x86 machines – and the application of server virtualisation techniques have resulted in slower sales and lower revenue growth in the server market.
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%.
