Q3 2009: Blade Servers and x86 Leading Server Market
With a 1.2% growth, blade servers are leading all others in the market segment that may have made strides in the past. But the IDC research firm sees light at the end of the tunnel: since the bleak period that ended 2008, the revenue curve for the worldwide server market is trending upwards again.
Compared with 2008, the worldwide revenue for the server market declined 17.3% in the third quarter of 2009 to $10.4 billion, which makes the fifth consecutive quarter of a downturn. Server unit shipments fell by almost 18% year over year. Volume shipments fell by almost 15%, with midrange enterprise server revenue falling by more than 23%.
IDC emphasizes, however, that the negative trend in revenue and unit shipments is only half as bad as it was in 2Q09. The second quarter showed a decline of a little over 30%. The market research firm rates the Q3 figures in comparatively positive terms: revenue grew for the first time since 4Q08 and server shipments increased by 12.4% year over year, "the largest sequential unit growth since 2005."
Linux servers grew in market share year over year by not quite one percent to 14.8%, with $1.5 billion total revenue among vendors and distributors. The increase was $200 million over the previous quarter, but still almost 13% less than 3Q08. In comparison, the UNIX server revenue came to $2.8 billion, a slight decline since Q2 and more than a 23% cut year over year, representing a market share of just under 27%. The largest revenue share came from Windows machines in 3Q09, with $4.5 billion, but with a similar year-over-year decline at just under 13% as the Linux servers.
IDC found that the x86 processor platform factory revenues grew by 18.7% from quarter to quarter, but still showed a drop of 12.3% year over year. The only growth factor seemed to be the blade server market: compared to last year, factory revenue actually grew by 1.2%, even though shipments declined by 14%. The results show a revenue growth for three quarters in a row, with blade servers the top growth market over the last six months. IDC attributes the blade server success to cost efficiencies due to next generation processors (Intel Nehalem) and increased RAM. Customers use blade servers for new, virtualized environments, considering them "closely associated technologies" and a driving force in the data center of the future.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.