I was updating a slide deck that I use to compare blade server technologies for customers when I came across the IDC and Gartner data from Q3 of 2009. I was very surprised at what I found out, so today’s post takes a look back at 2009 and compares it to 2010. Continue reading
Tag Archives: IDC
IBM Gains Blade Server Market Share in Q3 2010
IDC came out with their 3Q 2010 worldwide server market revenue report last month which shows that IBM grew from Q2 2010 in their blade market share. Continue reading
Still Confused About Cisco’s Blade Market Share
I recently received a comment on my previous post concerning Cisco’s market share (“What’s the Truth About Cisco’s Market Share“) which has me more confused. The comment admits that Cisco has not released any market share data to IDC, but that when you look at the Cisco Q1 2010 Earnings Call and compare it to IDC’s findings of the overall industry you should be able to derive conclusions from there. That’s where it gets confusing. Continue reading
What is the Truth About Cisco’s Blade Server Market Share?
What is Cisco’s blade server market share? That seems to be the mystery question that no one can really answer. The previous IDC quarterly worldwide server report mentioned nothing about Cisco, yet readers and bloggers alike claim Cisco is #3, so what IS the true answer? Continue reading
REVISED HP Loses Blade Market Share in Q2
Revised 9/29/2010 – I previously titled this blog post, “HP Loses Blade Server Market Share to IBM…” however I have since re-thought that statement. The report from IDC does not specify where HP’s blade server market share went from Q1 2010 – it only provides Q2 2010 market share numbers. I regret any confusion I may have caused.
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(UPDATED) IDC Q1 2010 Report: Blade Servers Growing, With #1 Market Share Going To…
NOTE: IDC revised their report on May 28, 2010. This post now includes those changes.
IDC reported on May 28, 2010 that worldwide server sales for Q1 2010 factory revenues increased 4.6 4.7% year over year to $10.4 billion in the first quarter of 2010 (1Q10). They also reported the blade server market accelerated and continued its sharp growth in the quarter with factory revenue increasing 37.1% 37.2% year over year, with shipment growth increasing by 20.8% compared to 1Q09. According to IDC, nearly 90% of all blade revenue is driven by x86 systems, a segment in which blades now represent 18.8% of all x86 server revenue. Continue reading
IDC Q4 2009 Report: Blade Servers STILL Growing, HP Leads STILL Leading in Shares
IDC reported on February 24, 2010 that blade server sales for Q4 2009 returned to quarterly revenue growth with factory revenues increasing 30.9% in Q4 2009 year over year (vs 1.2% in Q3.) For the first time in 2009 there was an 8.3% increase in year-over-year shipments in Q4. Overall blade servers accounted for $1.8 billion in Q4 2009 (up from $1.3 billion in Q3) which represented 13.9% of the overall server revenue. It was also reported that more than 87% of all blade revenue in Q4 2009 was driven by x86 systems where blades now represent 21.4% of all x86 server revenue.
While the press release did not provide details of the market share for all of the top 5 blade vendors, they did provide data for the following:
#1 market share: HP with 52.4%
#2 market share: IBM increased their marketshare from Q3 by 5.7% growth to 35.1%
As an important note, according to IDC, IBM significantly outperformed the market with year-over-year revenue growth of 64.1%.
According to Jed Scaramella, senior research analyst in IDC's Datacenter and Enterprise Server group, "Blades remained a bright spot in the server vendors’ portfolios. They were able to grow blade revenue throughout the year while maintaining their average selling prices. Customers recognize the benefits extend beyond consolidation and density, and are leveraging the platform to deliver a dynamic IT environment. Vendors consider blades strategic to their business due to the strong loyalty customers develop for their blade vendor as well as the higher level of pull-through revenue associated with blades."
Interesting HP Server Facts (from IDC)
As you can see from my blog title, I try to focus on “all things blade servers”, however I came across this bit of information that I thought would be fun to blog. An upfront warning – this is an HP biased blog post, so sorry for those of you who are Cisco, Dell or IBM fans.
Market research firm, IDC released a quarterly update to their Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, citing market share figures for the 3rd calendar quarter of 2009 (3Q09). From this report, there are a few fun HP server facts (thanks to HP for passing these facts along to me:)
HP is the #1 vendor in worldwide server shipments for the 30th consecutive quarter (7.5 years). HP shipped more than 1 out of every 3 servers worldwide and captured 36.5 percent total unit shipment share.
According to IDC:
- HP shipped over 161,000 more servers than #2 Dell.
- HP shipped 2.6 times as many servers as #3 IBM
- 9.0 times as #4 Fujitsu
- 12.9 times as many as #5 Sun.
- HP ended up in a statistical tie with IBM for #1 in total server revenue market share with 30.9 percent. This includes all server (UNIX and x86 revenues.)
HP leads the blade server market, with a 50.7 percent revenue share, and a 47.7 percent unit share.
I blogged about this in early December (see this link for details),but it’s no surprise that HP is leading the pack in blade sales. Their field sales team is actively promoting blades for nearly every server opportunity and they continue to make innovative additions to their blades (like 10Gb NICs standard on G6 blades.) HP Integrity blades claimed the #1 position in revenue share for the RISC+EPIC blade segment with a 53.2 percent share gaining 1.8 points year over year.
For the 53rd consecutive quarter, more than 13 years, HP ProLiant is the x86 server market share leader in both factory revenue and units, shipping more than 1 out of every 3 servers in this market with a 36.9 percent unit share.
HP’s x86 revenue share was 14.6 points higher than its nearest competitor; Dell. HP’s x86 revenue share was 19.2 percentage points higher than IBM.
For the 3 major operating environments UNIX®, Windows and Linux combined (representing 99.3 percent of all servers shipped worldwide), HP is number 1 worldwide in server unit shipment and revenue market share.
HP holds a 36.5 percent unit market share worldwide, which is 2.6 times more than IBM’s unit market share and 12.9 times the unit share of Sun.
HP holds a 35.4 percent revenue market share worldwide which is 2.2 times the revenue share of Dell and 4.0 times the revenue share of Sun.
FINAL NOTE: All of the following market share figures are for the 3rd quarter (unless otherwise noted) and represent worldwide results as reported by the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker for Q309, December 2009.