A server refresh cycle, investments in hyperscale data centre capacity and adoption of 3rd platform computing are all contributing to growth in the worldwide server market, according to new data from IDC Corp.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker reports vendor revenue growth in the server market of 4.8 per cent year over year in the third quarter, the second consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Shipments improved by 5.7 per cent year over year to 2.38 million units.
When viewed by category, volume systems experienced 8.8 per cent revenue growth and midrange systems grew by 18.4 per cent. In the high-end enterprise system space however, IDC attributed a decline in revenue of 23.2 per cent primarily due to difficult year-over-year comparisons and product cyclicality issues.
“The server market continues to be deeply impacted by the shift to the 3rd Platform and the affect of mobile, cloud, social and big data analytic technologies. IDC has seen increasing market influence from Greater China, hyperscale datacenters, ODMs and native Chinese OEMs, all of which grew sharply in the third quarter,” said Matt Eastwood, group vice-president and general manager, enterprise platforms at IDC, in a statement. “We also saw the continuation of a cyclical enterprise refresh cycle, which IDC expects will continue well into 2015. This refresh will be further accelerated by Microsoft’s announcement that it is ending support for Windows Server 2003, coupled with Intel’s recent release of its Grantley Xeon EP.”
On the vendor leaderboard, HP held down top spot with 26.5 per cent of the worldwide server market, although its revenue was off slightly with improving demand for x86-based ProLiant servers and continued weakness in Itanium-based Integrity server revenue. IBM was next with 18.2 per cent of the market and saw its revenue drop by 17.8 per cent, with demand down across the board ahead of the sale of its x86 server business to Lenovo. Dell, Cisco and Oracle round out the top five.