The demand for server blades has been increasing with every passing year. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew 3.5% year over year to $12.9 billion in the third quarter of 2006.
On the other hand, High-end enterprise server revenue grew 9.1% year over year, which represented the primary growth engine for the server market
In the third quarter with spending growing 3.8%, Virtualization continues to drive slower growth in the volume server market. At the same time, Revenue for mid-range enterprise servers declined 2.3%, marking the fourth consecutive quarterly decrease in that segment.
"Enterprise and SMB customers continue to evolve their IT buying patterns based on the product innovation that continues to occur across the marketplace," said Matt Eastwood, VP, Program, Enterprise Platforms at IDC.
"For end-users, new levels of compute density mean increased power densities and expanding power and cooling challenges, which are driving different IT infrastructure acquisition patterns. For technology suppliers, this inflection point represents an opportunity for the vendors best equipped to innovate their systems, software, and services offerings and meet these challenges," he added.
According to the Top-Level Server Market Findings, Microsoft Windows servers continued to show growth with revenues rising to 4.6%, Linux with $1.5 billion, whereas Unix servers experienced a 1.7% decline.
In the x 86 market segments, AMD based server revenue grew 79.7%, Intel gained x86 market share and its branded processors maintained 80.2%. EPIC/Itanium-based systems grew by 23.8%.
In terms of factory revenue, IBM maintains the number 1 spot in the worldwide server systems market with 33.1% followed by HP with 27.7% share, Dell and Sun in a statistical tie for the number 3 position with 3.8%, and Fujitsu/Fujitsu-Siemens with market share of 5.3% as per the findings of Overall Server Market Standings by Vendor.
As regard to unit shipments, HP retains its number 1 position with 28.8%, followed by Dell with 24.6% share.
Growth in the x86 server market remained positive in 3Q06, accelerating slightly from the year-over-year growth reported in 2Q06.
IBM, HP, Dell, and Sun all posted positive revenue growth in the x86 server market.
The top 5 server vendors to outgrow the x 86 markets in 3Q06 were HP, IBM and Sun - growing factory revenue 6.6%, 7.7% and 46.5% respectively. HP led the market with 33.1% revenue share and Dell maintained the second position with 20.6% revenue.
The server blade market showed continued growth. The bladed servers, including x86, EPIC, and RISC blades, accounted for $738 million in the third quarter, representing 5.7% of quarterly server market revenue and x86 blades exceeded 10% of all its server revenue for the second consecutive quarter. IBM maintained the number 1 spot in terms of server blade revenues, with 42.3% mark.
