Report: Linux outpaces Windows on servers
Linux continues to strengthen its position in the server market with revenue growth of almost 43 percent in the third quarter of this year, while Windows-based systems gained 13 percent, according to a new report released by research firm IDC.
The global server market maintained its pace of healthy growth with revenues climbing 5.5 percent in the past year to $11.5 billion in the third quarter of this year, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of positive revenue growth.
Volume server revenue grew 18.2 percent year over year and continues to represent the primary growth engine for the server market overall, IDC said. Buoyed by renewed enterprise spending, the high-end enterprise server market grew 1.9 percent in the same time frame.
In contrast, revenue for midrange enterprise servers declined 10.2 percent, which was the third consecutive quarterly decline as a result of migration of traditional midrange workloads to higher volume server systems.
Linux servers posted their ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth with year-over-year revenue growth of 42.6 percent growth and unit shipments increasing 31.7 percent, according to IDC's findings. Revenues for Windows servers grew 13.3 percent, unit shipments were up 19.1 percent year over year. Quarterly revenue of $3.9 billion for Windows servers represented 33.9% of overall quarterly factory revenue, equal in size to the Unix market, IDC said.
IBM held on to its position as leading vendor for worldwide server systems market with 31.7 percent market of worldwide revenues in the third quarter. HP achieved the top spot in terms of unit shipments and was second for revenues with a share of 26.8 percent.
