Linux, Windows Server Demand Drives 24% Gain
Unix didn't grab a piece of the market's fastest quarterly growth in more than 5 years.
At a time when overall server sales are experiencing 11% year-over-year growth in factory revenue, demand for Linux and Windows servers continues to increase at the expense of Unix machines, a new IDC study finds.
Server unit shipments increased 23.8%, year-over-year, in the second quarter of 2010, up slightly from 23% shipment growth in the prior quarter, IDC said. This represents the most rapid year-over-year quarterly server shipment growth in more than five years, and is the fastest revenue growth since 2003, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker.
"The server market is at a crossroads. This is the fourth consecutive quarter of improving server market demand and the fastest quarterly server revenue growth IDC has reported in more than 5 years," said Matt Eastwood, group VP of enterprise platforms at IDC.
Demand for Microsoft Windows servers was propelled, in part, by the accelerating x86 server market, which saw a 36.6% increase in hardware revenue and a 28.2% surge in unit shipments, year-over-year, the researcher said. For the quarter, Windows server revenue hit $5 billion, representing 46.5% of overall quarterly factory revenue, IDC determined.
In fact, x86 server revenue grew 35.3% last quarter, hitting $7 billion worldwide, with unit shipments of 1.8 million servers, said IDC.
"Within the x86 server market, enterprise spending has had a strong return through server refreshes," said Reuben Miller, senior analyst, enterprise servers at IDC. "As the economy begins to show signs of recovery, large enterprise businesses are gaining a better view of spending capabilities for the remainder of the fiscal year and beginning to increase their investments"
Linux server sales also grew, with revenue increasing 30% to $1.8 billion over the same period in 2009, according to IDC. Today, Linux servers account for 16.8% of all server revenue, an increase of 2.5% over the second quarter of last year, the research firm said.
However, this growth apparently came at Unix's expense: Revenue for Unix servers dropped 7.2% to $2.9 billion, said IDC. Unix now accounts for 26.3% of quarterly server spending, a decrease of 5.2% vs. the second quarter of 2009 but up 3.9 points from the first quarter of 2010, the research firm said.
We welcome your comments on this topic on our social media channels, or
[contact us directly] with questions about the site.

1 of 2

More Insights