WSJ.com - Server Market Grew 5.1% In 4th Quarter, IDC Says

WSJ.com - Server Market Grew 5.1% In 4th Quarter, IDC Says: "Sales of computer servers rose 5.1% in the fourth quarter to $14.4 billion, market researchers from IDC said.
The quarter was the seventh in a row in which the market advanced, though low-cost servers -- those costing less than $25,000 -- were the only ones to show growth. Revenue from shipments of mid-range servers, costing from $25,000 to $499,000, and high-end servers, costing $500,000 or more, declined, IDC said.
Unit shipments for the market as a whole rose 15.7% in the period.
IDC said International Business Machines Corp. remained the largest server vendor with 38.2% of the market's revenue. Hewlett-Packard Co. was second with a 25.9% share.
H-P maintained its lead in the market for servers running x86 chips from Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. with a 32.6% share. IBM and Dell Inc. tied for second, each holding a 21% position.
In the Unix market, IBM took over the lead, while H-P was second and Sun Microsystems Inc. was third.
Linux server revenue continued its strong growth, expanding 35.6%. Revenue from the Windows server market grew 15.5%."

Reading between the lines:
1. Lintel and Wintel are the only growing platform permutations (including AMD x86)
2. Dell has matched IBM on x86 server share
3. Lots of clouds in Sun's future