Server shipments up 20% in 2003, HP, Dell, IBM, Sun lead the way

Server shipments increased from 1.28 mln in the fourth quarter of 2002 to 1.59 mln in the fourth quarter of 2003. For the entire year, server shipments grew 20%, Gartner said. The server market has been gloomy since the end of the Internet mania in 2000. Although unit shipments never stopped growing, revenue from those sales shrank as fierce competition unleashed deep discounts. A bruised technology industry is starting to take heart with rosier projections, though. Measured by units shipped, Hewlett-Packard remained the leader with 462,000 for the quarter. Dell was No. 2 with 319,000, IBM was No. 3 at 274,000 and Sun Microsystems was No. 4 with 84,000.