Server market shows signs of recovery

Despite a drop in third-quarter revenue, Gartner says the market is levelling out

All of the top five vendors suffered annual revenue and shipment declines in Q3

The server market is showing signs of recovery, according to Gartner, despite a drop in revenue in the third quarter compared with the same period last year.

Figures released by the market analyst show that Q3 global server revenues are 15.5 per cent lower than the same period last year. Global server shipments were just over 17 per cent lower.

Gartner said the figures, despite first appearances, make for much happier reading when compared sequentially and are proof that the market is leveling off.

“Looking at the third quarter results from the sequential perspective, they showed an increase of 13.8 per cent in shipments and 10.2 per cent in revenues when compared with the second quarter of this year," said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner.

“That suggests that the market as a whole is showing signs of stabilisation as we move toward the end of 2009.”

The figures also reveal that IBM, HP and Dell third quarter revenues have all taken a tumble compared with the same period last year. Fourth-placed outfit Sun suffered a whopping 32.3 per cent decline in sales as its market share dropped from 9.2 to 7.4 per cent.