Gartner Q1 Server Vendors: Winners And Losers

Q1 Server Share: Here's The Data

The intense battle for server market share in the first quarter has caused a stir, with Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman pledging a stepped-up campaign to win back share in the wake of gains being made by rival Dell. Here's a look at the final numbers from Gartner. IDC's first-quarter server data will be released May 29.

Dell Is A Big Winner

Dell made gains in both sales and units in the server market. Worldwide server revenue share for Dell, which is in the midst of a $24.4 billion leveraged buyout, was up 14.4 percent to 18 percent share in first-quarter 2013 compared with 14.9 percent in the year-ago quarter, according to Gartner.

Dell's worldwide shipment share was up 2.6 percent to 22.2 percent compared with 21.5 percent in the similar quarter one year ago, Gartner said.

Dell CEO Michael Dell (pictured) calls the server share gains over rival HP "staggering." He has said Dell will turn up the heat further once the company's leveraged buyout is completed.

Dell's x86 Market Success

Dell is having success against HP with cloud service and Internet providers that are building out data centers with aggressively priced, custom-designed industry-standard servers.

Dell's x86 revenue share was up 14.4 percent to 23.3 percent, Gartner said. Dell's x86 shipment share was up 2.6 percent to 22.5 percent in the first quarter compared with 21.9 percent in the year-ago quarter.

HP Is Losing Worldwide Share

HP's worldwide revenue share dropped 14.4 percent in first-quarter 2013 to 25 percent compared with 27.8 percent in the same quarter one year ago, according to Gartner.

HP's worldwide shipment share, meanwhile, was down 15.2 percent to 24.9 percent compared with 29.2 percent in the year-ago quarter, Gartner said.

HP Takes A Tumble In x86 Market

HP's worldwide revenue share in the intensely competitive x86 market was down 10.9 percent in the first quarter to 29.1 percent compared with 33.2 percent in the similar quarter one year ago, according to Gartner.

HP's worldwide shipment share in the x86 server market, meanwhile, was down 15 percent to 25.1 percent in the first quarter compared with 29.5 percent in the year-ago quarter.

Whitman (pictured) has pledged that HP is poised to get more aggressive to stem declines in the industry-standard server market where it is losing share to rival Dell. In fact, Whitman has said HP is "moving quickly to revamp business models to give our sales teams and channel partners more tools and more agility, especially on pricing."

IBM Sales Share Is Down

IBM's worldwide server revenue share was down 13.6 percent to 25.5 percent, or $3.01 billion, in the first quarter compared with 28 percent, or $3.49 billion, in the same quarter one year ago, according to Gartner.

Even with the server sales market share decline, IBM maintained the lead in the worldwide server market based on revenue with its 25.5 percent share in the first quarter, just ahead of HP, which was second with worldwide revenue share of 25 percent, Gartner said.

One reason for IBM's lead is its strong showing in the mainframe server market. The mainframe server market was up about 3.6 percent in overall worldwide revenue, according to Gartner.

Cisco Is Gaining Share

Cisco, which unveiled its Unified Computing System four years ago, continues to gain share.

Cisco, in fact, next to Dell, was the only other vendor to show positive shipment share growth in the worldwide market, according to Gartner.

Cisco's worldwide shipment share was up 33 percent to a 2.3 percent share of the market with 53.87 million units shipped in the first quarter compared with 1.7 percent, or 40.49 million units shipped, in the similar quarter one year ago.

Cisco gets a chance to celebrate its strong showing in servers, albeit from a relatively small base, at its worldwide partner conference in Boston next week.

Oracle Is Losing Share

Three years after its $7.4 billion acquisition of workstation maker Sun Microsystems, database kingpin Oracle continues to have trouble in the server market.

Oracle's worldwide revenue share plunged 27.2 percent in the first quarter to 4.6 percent compared with 5.9 percent in the similar quarter one year ago, according to Gartner.

Oracle's hardware systems product sales for its third fiscal quarter ended Feb. 28 dropped 23 percent to $671 million compared with $869 million in the same quarter one year ago.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison (pictured) has pledged that 2014 will be a "big growth year" for the company's hardware business.

Oracle's Unix Server Sales Off Sharply

Oracle's server market-share troubles are in the RISC/Itanium Unix server market where overall vendor shipments plunged 38.8 percent in the quarter and worldwide overall vendor revenue was off 35.8 percent, according to Gartner.

Oracle's RISC/Itanium Unix worldwide shipment share in the first quarter dropped 60.4 percent to 26.7 percent compared with 41.3 percent in the year-ago quarter, Gartner said.

Oracle's RISC/Itanium Unix worldwide revenue share, meanwhile, dropped 38.3 percent in the quarter to 19.8 percent market share in the first quarter compared with 20.6 percent share in the same quarter one year ago.

x86 Self-Build For Cloud On The Rise

One bright spot in the overall worldwide server market is the sharp rise in the x86 worldwide shipments in self-build or original design manufacturer (ODM) shipments, according to Gartner.

Worldwide revenue share for x86 self-build/ODM, which includes Internet giants such as Facebook and Amazon building their own systems, was up 34.5 percent to 4.8 percent of the market in the first quarter compared with 3.6 percent in the similar quarter one year ago, according to Gartner.

Gartner said that worldwide shipment share for x86 self-build/ODM in the first quarter was up 34.7 percent to 7.3 percent share or 167,200 shipments compared with 5.4 percent or 124,100 shipments.