IBM Holds Lead in Server Market

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) held on to the market share lead in the fourth quarter, claiming 36.5% of sales, identical with its share in the fourth quarter of 2011. Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) held on to second place, with market share of 24.8%, down’ 1.8% from its fourth quarter share a year earlier, and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) finished third, with share of 15.1%, down just 0.3% from same period in 2011. Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL), Fujitsu, and Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) finished in a statistical tie for fourth place with around 3% to 4% share each.

The revenue picture was a bit brighter, with total year-over-year quarterly revenue growth of 3.1%, but the growth was spread unevenly. IBM posted growth of 3.1%, to $5.34 billion for the quarter, while Cisco grew revenue nearly 51%, to $480 million. Dell’s revenue grew 5.7% to $2.22 billion, while HP’s revenue fell 3.2% to $3.63 billion.

IDC noted that average selling prices “increased sharply” in the quarter, with most growth coming at the low and high ends of the server product offerings. Mid-range server revenues declined for the quarter by 10%, while low-end machines posted revenue growth of 4.2% and revenue on high-end machines grew by 6.4%.

Servers powered by Windows from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) grabbed 45.8% of revenues, while Linux-based machines garnered 20.4% of revenues, mostly at the expense of Unix-based servers. IBM’s mainframes saw a revenue boost of more than 55%, to $1.8 billion, the first positive spurt after five consecutive quarters of decline.