Server Market Grew in 2013, but Revenues Declined

Gartner has released fourth quarter 2013 statistics on the worldwide server shipments and while the numbers are up, the total revenue decreased.

I've surmised over the past year that we may actually see a decline in server shipments, should the Public Cloud become more prominent. But, as I stated just in January, the Public Cloud is not as popular an option as many vendors and marketers would have you believe. There are tidbits of value here and there for data storage and disaster recovery in the Public Cloud, but by and large businesses are choosing to build Private Clouds in their own datacenters. The primary reasons for this are control, security, and privacy. And, this really goes right along with what Gartner is professing today.

Server shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013 grew by 2.1 percent and revenue declined 4.5 percent. The reported numbers also shows that growth rates in the North American remained flat, while Asia/Pacific and Japan saw the largest advance.

Companies leading overall server revenue were HP, IBM, Dell, Cisco, and Oracle – in that order – while actual shipments showed HP, Dell, IBM, Huawei, and Fujitsu.

Gartner also proposes that more moderate growth will be seen in 2014 due to more enterprises buying servers to consolidate physical machines, again highlighting the expansion of the Private Cloud (or customer-driven Cloud).

All the numbers are available to sift through here: Gartner Says 2013 Worldwide Server Market Grew 2.1 Percent in Shipments, While Revenue Decreased 4.5 Percent for the Year