The server race—especially a dogfight for the No. 4 position between Oracle, Cisco and Fujitsu—is getting interesting.
According to IDC, IBM was the No. 1 server vendor in the fourth quarter with 36.5 percent market share. IBM got a big boost from System z mainframes. HP was No. 2 with 24.8 percent market share as its high-end Itanium system sales continued to fall. Dell had 15.1 percent of the market in the fourth quarter.
But the most notable battle was in the No. 4 position. Oracle's market share slide continued and Cisco edged into a statistical tie. IDC noted that this quarter was the first time Cisco broke into the top 5. Overall, global server revenue for the fourth quarter was $14.6 billion, up 3.1 percent from a year ago.
And for all of 2012.
Another notable item from IDC was the vendor scorecard in developed and emerging markets. IBM is strong in emerging markets as is HP, but Fujitsu is a no-show and Cisco is weaker than it is in developed economies.
Other odds and ends: