IBM retained its narrow lead over Hewlett-Packard in the worldwide server market as sales began to stabilize during the third quarter, Gartner said Monday. IBM took 31.7% of server revenue in the three months to Oct. 31, up a fraction from last year, while HP’s share stayed more or less flat at 30.2%, Gartner said. The companies were followed at a distance by Dell, Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu.
Server revenue overall dropped 15.5% from the third quarter last year, to $10.7 billion. But it was up by 10.2% compared to the second quarter this year, Gartner said. “It is important to put the yearly declines into perspective,” Gartner Research Vice President Jeffrey Hewitt said in a statement. The server market is “showing signs of stabilization as we move toward the end of 2009.”
All the top vendors bar one saw their server revenue improve from the second quarter. The exception was Sun Microsystems, whose business has been hit by uncertainty surrounding its acquisition by Oracle.
