IBM Shines in Strong Q2 Server Market

IBM's worldwide host revenue jumped a healthy 24.5 percent in the second quarter, putt it neck and neck with Hewlett-Packard for the top spot, IDC rumored Tuesday.

Helped past a surge in mainframe sales, IBM's tax revenue climbed to just concluded US$4 billion in the quarter, giving it 30.5 percent of the overall market. Horsepower's sales climbed a more modest 9.3 percent, to $3.9 billion, for 29.8 percent of the commercialize. IBM crowed that it had recaptured the server crown, merely IDC asserted it "a statistical tie."

Server sales were powerful overall, with worldwide revenue mounting 18 percent from a year earlier to $13.2 trillion, IDC said. Unit shipments were 2.1 million, the second-highest total ever reported for a June quarter. The highest was in 2008, scarcely before the economy went south.

"These numbers racket were actually slightly better than we were expecting," said IDC psychoanalyst Jed Scaramella.

Recent UNIX upgrades from HP, IBM and Oracle helped hook the results, as did new mainframes from IBM. In addition, companies that dishearten buying new gear during the recession finally had to make purchases, IDC said.

The last half of the twelvemonth won't be so rosy, however. The refresh cycles are starting to dry up and "weakening macroeconomic concerns roughly the world testament serve to moderate demand for servers later this twelvemonth," IDC said in a statement.

The research firm predicts "a light landing" for the server market in the arcsecond half, Scaramella same.

Still, for now business was brisk all told segments. Sales of volume systems, which by IDC's definition monetary value little than $25,000, were up 17 percent from a year in the first place, while sales of midrange systems, priced from $25,000 to $250,000, were up past the same amount of money. Sales of high-conclusion systems — those priced above $250,000 — climbed 23 percent, IDC said.

The high-end sales undoubtedly were helped by IBM's Scheme z mainframe gross sales, which were up 61 percent from a year earlier, to $1.2 billion. Blades too performed well, with revenue up 27 percent year complete year, IDC said.

All vendors saw their waiter tax income gain from a year earlier. Fujitsu, the smallest of the top five vendors, saw its revenue more than look-alike, largely thanks to the K-estimator adenoidal-performance ADP system in Japanese Archipelago. It finished the quarter with 6.5 percentage market share, in a applied mathematics tie with Oracle, whose sales increased just 4.2 pct.

Dell's server gross sales increased by 5.1 percent, IDC said, putting it in the middle of the pack with taxation of $1.8 billion.

"This was the fifth part consecutive quarter with double-digit yr-concluded-year revenue growth, as the market recovery continued to extend from x86 servers to midrange UNIX system to high-end central processor class systems," IDC analyst Matt Eastwood same in a statement.

Jesse James Niccolai covers information centers and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James II's e-mail service address is james_niccolai@idg.com