Server sales slide; IBM, HP nearly tied for market share lead

Global server sales fell 5.2 percent in the third quarter, the largest decline since the fourth quarter of 2002. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard maintained a very slight market share lead over IBM, but statistically it's a tie, according to IDC.

According to IDC, third quarter global revenue was $12.6 billion, down 5.2 percent, but units were up 2.8 percent compared to a year ago. That shipment increase was the slowest since the fourth quarter of 2006.

By the numbers:

• HP and IBM have 30.7 percent and 30.2 percent overall market share, respectively. However, HP, IBM and Dell all saw revenue declines ranging from 2 percent to 4.3 percent. Sun's server sales fell 10.9 percent in the third quarter compared to a year ago. In general, Sun is getting clocked in the server market.
• Microsoft Windows server revenue was $5.1 billion in the third quarter, down 5.1 percent from a year ago. Windows represents 40.8 percent of all server revenue.
• Linux server revenue fell 2.5 percent from a year to $1.8 billion, good for 14 percent market share.
• Unix server revenue fell 8.4 percent from a year ago to $3.7 billion, or 29.7 percent market share.
• IBM System z server revenue was up 24.8 percent, or 9.4 percent market share.

And here are the standings: