IDC on server shipments in Q3 2003

Growth: Server sales gre by 2% in Q3 2003 YTY. Worldwide server revenue, which includes the costs of server hardware, operating systems and initial storage shipments, reached US$10.8 billion, up from $10.6 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Top vendors: IBM, HP, Sun, Dell and Fujitsu. IBM Corp. retained its lead of the server market, with a 31.1% market share on revenue of $3.4 bil. Hewlett-Packard Co. was second, with 27.7% on $3 bil in revenue, followed by Sun Microsystems Inc. and Dell Inc., with 10.8% and 9.5% of the market, on sales of $1.17 bil and $1.03 bil, respectively.

OS: Sun was the hardest hit by the decline in Unix spending. Its market share dropped by 9.3% from the same quarter in 2002. Strong growth in the Linux market, which grew by 50%, took its toll on Sun. Windows server sales also grew at a respectable pace, increasing by 10% from the previous year and slightly exceeding IDC's expectations for the quarter. When measured by the number of units shipped, Windows remained far ahead of Linux, with 841,000 Windows servers shipped in the quarter, compared to 210,000 Linux boxes.

Overall, unit shipments grew a surprising 19.5%, reflecting solid demand for small servers priced less than $25,000. Revenues from those systems grew 9.5%, while sales of midrange systems, $25,000 to $499,999, increased by 7%. Revenue from servers priced more than $500,000 declined by 14%.