Server sales surge in second quarter; HP, Dell gain, says IDC

The server upgrade cycle continues to chug along with global sales rising 11 percent in the second quarter to $10.9 billion, according to International Data Corp. (IDC) data. Hewlett-Packard retained its market share lead.

Server sales grew at the fastest quarterly revenue clip since 2003. Fueled by new Intel server chips, creaky gear and data center upgrades, server sales have surged. Unit shipments were up 23.8 percent from a year ago. In the first quarter, shipments were up 23 percent from a year ago.

Here's a look at the standings:

By the numbers:

• Microsoft Windows server demand had revenue of $5 billion in second quarter, 46.5 percent of the overall server revenue tally.
• Linux server revenue surged 30.1 percent to $1.8 billion. Linux servers are now 16.8 percent of all revenue.
• Unix server revenue fell 7.3 percent as customers held out for new IBM Power7 systems. Meanwhile, HP's Integrity server just launched at the end of the second quarter and Oracle's roadmap for Sparc servers was in limbo. Unix server revenue of $2.9 billion represented 26.3 percent of the total sales pie.
• Volume systems shipments were up 31.7 percent from a year ago.
• Mid-range server growth was 15.6 percent.
• High-end server systems revenue fell 27.2 percent. That's the seventh straight quarter of revenue declines.
• Blade server revenue was up 40.3 percent in the second quarter from a year ago.

Add it up and x86 systems are clearly outpacing Unix and mainframe upgrades. Indeed, HP and Dell are cleaning up in the x86 space. IDC, however, said that it expects server demand to pick up for higher end systems.