The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) server market experienced healthy growth in sales in the first quarter of 2007, but System i sales suffered, according to analyst IDC.

IDC estimates that, as a whole, the EMEA market increased factory revenue by 11%, compared to the same quarter of the previous year, to more than $4.2 billion, with a corresponding rise in shipments of 8% to 600,000 units. However, according to IDC's EMEA Quarterly Server Tracker service, System i revenue was down 23% to $93 million compared to the same period in 2006 and actual shipments were down 41%.

The picture in the UK was better with a 15% decline in revenue coupled with a 34% decline in shipments. There may well be some within the System i community that would dispute the figures. IBM’s own server revenue calculations are themselves complex with different divisions divvying up the revenue on each System i sale, the vast majority of which are made through third-party business sellers anyway. Plus, as the platform is still well ahead of the pack when it comes to virtualisation, a decline in hardware shipments is inevitable.

 
Indeed, Nathaniel Martinez, IDC’s European enterprise servers programme manager, says: "Server virtualisation technology is rapidly becoming firmly entrenched in Western European organisations and constitutes one of the largest factors in short-term growth in the server market place."

 
Linux growth continued unabated with an annual sales increase of 42% and its strongest performance in the Western European region to date. Windows displayed an annual revenue increase of 13% while waiting for the full impact of the Longhorn launch in forthcoming quarters. Unix sales were flat. Sales of x86 servers surpassed the $2 billion mark, almost on par with non-x86 server sales. 

HP pipped IBM to the top spot with a 33% market share to Big Blue’s 31%, growing its revenue 15% annually thanks to a strong performance across the Integrity, Integrity Non-Stop, and ProLiant servers. IBM had strong sales from System p and System z as well as System x, according to IDC. Martinez said that with the POWER6 launch, on the back of  what he described as the  very successful POWER5 and POWER5+-driven products, competition will only get tougher for HP and was not sure how long HP will manage to maintain its lead over Big Blue in EMEA. 

Seamus Quinn, editor.