IBM and HP Lead Server Market, IDC Finds

In what probably won't surprise those versed in server industry knowledge, HP and IBM ended up taking the leading positions during the third quarter of 2011.

After somehow getting the leading role on the tablet market, HP also ended up on top in the server field, more or less tied with IBM at 29.8% share (their revenues differ by about $3 million, with IBM the better one).

In other words, IBM grew by 3.5% on-year, while HP dropped 3.8%.

“After nearly two years of steady revenue growth, the server market began to decelerate in Q3 2011 as demand stabilized for many system categories,” said Matt Eastwood, group vice president and general manager of enterprise platforms at IDC.

“Asia/Pacific and Japan exhibited strong revenue growth while server demand in EMEA, North America, and Latin America was flat to slightly down year over year. IDC continues to believe that weakening macroeconomic conditions around the world will serve to further moderate demand for new servers in 2012.”

Asia Pacific and Japan were the markets where revenue came in strongest, particularly from blade servers, which grew fastest.

Dell ended up on third place (15.1% share), followed by Oracle (6.0%) and Fujitsu (4.8%).

“Blade systems represented the fastest growing segment in the server industry and now account for 16.0% of total server revenue – a historic high. Blades are a key element of convergence that integrates server, storage, and networking to simplify IT complexity,” said Jed Scaramella, research manager of enterprise servers at IDC

“Customers are supplementing their blade platforms with automation and resource tools to create an agile IT environment and speed deployment times."

The server industry used to be in dangerous waters before it started recovering in the first quarter of 2010.

Since then, shipments and revenue went up every quarter, but this last one returned the slowest growth of them all. IDC believes that the market is stabilizing and that year-over-year contrasts will fade.