IBM's 6.5% growth in server revenues tops the overall market growth of 6.2%, according to market-watcher IDC. IBM's growth was driven by strong showings by the industry-standard xSeries and the Unix/Linux RISC-based pSeries.
Linux servers grew 35% Y-Y, and now top 9% of total server revenues, as of Q4. Since almost all Linux shipments are on lower-cost industry standard servers (e.g., Intel), the Linux units are well above the 9% level.
Windows server shipments were up an impressive 15%, while Unix servers were up a pedestrian 2.7% -- helped by a very strong 4th quarter. It will be interesting to see if Q4 was a one quarter blip, or the start of a Unix server replacement cycle. Watch closely as IBM, HP, and Sun announce their calendar Q1 numbers in 45 days or so. A solid Unix uptick would be great news to the bottom lines of HP and Sun, while IBM continues to gain Unix market share and would not complain.
Revenue leaders for 2004 in order are IBM, HP, Sun, and Dell.
See IDC market numbers competitor Gartner Group here on this story.
Peter S. Kastner
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