Dell and IBM see revenue growth for the server market

By Alun Williams

Posted on 3 Mar 2003 at 16:28

The global value of the server market was $12.3bn in the last three months of 2002, according to the latest figures from IDC.

Although this represents a year-on-year decline of 5.2 per cent, compared to the previous three months the market grew 15.2 per cent. This was attributed to strong growth at the entry-level (classed as machines priced at less than $100,000).

'As customers demand richer technology configurations at lower price points,' believes Jean S. Bozman, VP of Global Enterprise Server Solutions at IDC, 'the entry market will continue to lead market growth as vendors focus on entry products to meet those demands.'

Taking the server market as a whole, IBM dominates the picture. While overall revenue has grown 0.9 per cent, it has seen market share grow a couple of points to 36.2 per cent. HP has seen revenues fall by more than 17 per cent, but it still takes second place in market share with 25.9 per cent. Sun Microsystems is in third place (11.7 per cent) and Dell in fourth place (8 per cent). That only leaves Fujitsu, which saw a 19 per cent decline in revenue for its 2.3 per cent market share, before the 'Others' category accounts for 16 per cent of the market.

The UNIX server market (including both Intel and RISC UNIX based systems) has been particularly competitive. This is reflected in IBM and HP tying for top spot, with 30 per cent revenue market share. Sun Microsystems is close behind with 28 per share share. Taking the year as a whole, however, sees Sun reclaim the top spot with 32 per cent market share, unless you combine HP and Compaq retrospectively, which would let it share the top spot...

'As we indicated last quarter, the number 1 position in the UNIX market is very unpredictable,' said Steve Josselyn, research director of IDC's Enterprise Server Fundamentals. 'This quarter there was no clear leader as the top three vendors fought head-to-head, resulting in ties in multiple segments of the UNIX market.'

The biggest growth, however, related to Linux machines. This segment of the server market is now valued at $607m, an increase of 41 per cent from a year ago. While HP leads the Linux market, IBM shades out Dell to claim second spot.