According to analysts at IDC, x86 servers running Windows and Linux gained significant market share during the second-quarter of this year, while sales of UNIX-based systems continued to decline.
Showing that spending on IT-infrastructure is improving as companies recover from the economic down-turn, unit shipments of Windows-based servers increased by 28.2 per cent over the previous year. This resulted in a 36.6 per cent increase in revenue, pushing the total revenue generated from sales of servers running Microsoft's OS to around $5bn globally (£3.2bn).
Servers running Linux also saw a significant increase in demand. Revenue from the sale of these systems increased by almost a third to around $1.8bn (£1.2bn) last quarter. Sales of Linux servers now represent close to 17 per cent of all server revenue, which is an increase of 2.5 points from last year.
The results for UNIX systems were not quite as rosy, though, with global revenue decreasing by over seven per cent year-on-year. However, servers running the OS still accounted for 26.3 per cent of global revenue during the quarter, which works out to around $2.9bn (£1.9bn).
Overall, x86 servers continued to see very positive growth, with unit shipments increasing by 25.8 per cent compared to 2009. This marked the fifth consecutive quarter that these types of systems have outperformed their non-x86 counterparts.
However, the analysts expect this trend to turn around towards the end of the year, as businesses begin to replace high-end and enterprise servers. According to senior analyst Reuben Miller, "as the economy begins to show signs of recovery, large enterprise businesses are gaining a better view of spending capabilities for the remainder of the fiscal year and beginning to increase their investments".
