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IDC News Release, 12/6/10

According to International Data Corporation’s (IDC) EMEA Quarterly Server Tracker, EMEA server revenue in the third quarter of 2010 reached $3.1 billion, up 6.4% on the same quarter last year. The number of servers shipped was up 10.2% year on year after nearly 550,000 were sold. The strong results, with shipment volume back to double-digit growth, and revenue growth also significant, must be read in the context of a very weak third quarter last year, favoring year-to-date comparisons. When looking at revenue in absolute terms, it becomes apparent that the server market results are a long way from the peak seen in the fourth quarter of 2007, when revenue reached $5.4 billion.

By technology, x86 industry standard servers consolidated their position as the dominant technology, with $2.2 billion in revenue and 533,000 shipment units, an annual growth of 26.5% and 11.0% respectively. It is worth noting that the strong revenue growth, more than double the unit growth rate, is a positive sign that industry standard servers are avoiding the trend toward commoditization seen in previous quarters. Higher ASVs are a sign that enterprises are moving their mission-critical applications to x86 from RISC, CISC, and EPIC, and demanding more richly configured systems with higher availability features.

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