Dell dominates in new Density-Optimized Server category

IDC has released its Q4 2011 Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker. Dell owns the overall American x86 market with a market share of 33%, ahead of HP and IBM. For the first time ever, Dell also ranks No. 1 in the APJ x86 rack server market, with a 26% market share. Dell also dominates worldwide in a completely new category for hyperscale servers.

IDC created the new Density-Optimized Server category as part of its Q3 2011 Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker. The new category is in response to continuing demand for hyper-scale server solutions, which grew 48% in all regions for Q4. Dell Data Center Solutions servers fall into this new Density-Optimized Server category, often called cloud servers. According to IDC data, Dell has consistently been #1 in global market share in units and revenue in this new Density-Optimized Server Category.

Dell leads the Q4 2011 Density-Optimized Server market share with 39.0% unit share and 45.2% revenue share. IDC also reports that Dell has greater unit and revenue share in Density-Optimized Server market than the next three vendors combined. HP followed with 18.5% unit share and 15.5% revenue share, SGI with 5.3% unit share and 6.4% revenue share, and IBM with 4.5% market share and 6.1% revenue share.

Worldwide Density-Optimized Market Share Q4CY11

Unit share: Dell has 39.0% share, followed by HP at 18.5%, SGI at 5.3% and IBM at 4.5%.
Revenue share: Dell revenue share is at 45.2%, followed by HP at 15.5%, SGI at 6.4% and IBM at 6.1%

Regional Density-Optimized Server Market Share Q4CY11

US unit share: Dell is at has 38.1%, HP 18.0%, SGI 7.6% and IBM 2.8%
US revenue share: Dell has 43.2%, HP 13.9%, SGI at 7.6% and IBM 3.5%

At the global level, Dell has consistently led the hyperscale market segment in market share and revenue since 2009. It is gratifying to see industry confirmation of Dell’s commitment to listening to our customers, and understanding that the needs of operating hyperscale environments are different. DCS continues to deliver innovative infrastructure solutions to solve customer problems in the rapidly growing markets of Web 2.0, cloud, and high performance computing workloads, when our competitors are still following a path of one-size-fits-all.

True market innovators invent and grow categories. This is the second server category that industry research groups have had to add to keep up with advances in Dell technology solutions. (The first was the new microserver category.) The DCS team looks forward to growing the new Density-Optimized Server category and innovating new ones, as we continue to work directly with customers.

Extra credit points:

About the Author: Steve Cumings