Global server sales fell 15.1 percent in the final quarter of 2008, to $13.1 billion, with shipments dropping down to 11.7 percent, reports Gartner in its quarterly server survey released in March. Overall, 2008 saw server revenue drop by 4 percent as compared to 2007 figures and shipments increase by only 2.6 percent.

"The weakening economic environment had a deep impact on server market revenues in the fourth quarter as companies put a hold on spending across most market segments," said Gartner Senior Research Analyst Heeral Kota. "Almost all segments exhibited similar behavior as users sought to reduce costs and spending, deferring projects where possible. Blade servers were one of the few segments to achieve any growth at all in this challenging environment."

All three key Unix vendors - Sun, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard (HP) - registered double-digit Unix server shipment and revenue declines during the fourth quarter of 2008. Total Unix server shipments in the fourth quarter fell 10.5 percent and revenues dropped by 13.7 percent. Gartner estimates that approximately 89,287 RISC or Itanium machines with Unix operating systems were shipped during this quarter, down from 107,953 units in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Sun did take the number one spot in shipments for Unix servers with 52.6 percent, compared to 28.6 percent for IBM and 15 percent for HP.

Revenues came in at $3.8 billion, down from $4.4 billion a year ago. In Unix server sales, IBM placed first with $1.36 billion in revenues for a share of 36.1 percent, compared to HP with $1.09 billion for a 29 percent share and Sun with $1.06 billion, translating to 28.1 percentage share.

Blade servers were the only segment of the market that did show growth. Gartner reported blade server revenue increased 16 percent during the fourth quarter of 2008 with shipments up 12 percent. HP dominated the market with a 54.8 percent revenue share. IBM followed with a 21.7 percent revenue share. For the year, blade shipments increased 30 percent in 2008, while revenue from blade servers also increased 30 percent year-over-year.

In the x64 server space, HP dominated with $2.49 billion in sales and 672,620 shipments, although its x64 server shipments did fall 1.3 percent in Q4.

IBM did best all other vendors in overall server revenue with $4.4 billion during the fourth quarter of 2008. Those numbers reflect a 17 percent decrease from 2007's fourth quarter when IBM’s server revenues topped $5.3 billion.

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