Gartner: System z revenues looking good

Worldwide server revenues are up 5.7% from last year, according to a recent report from research firm Gartner. The release said that IBM had “solid increases” in its System p (Unix) and System z (mainframe) lines.

As a result, IBM’s market share when it comes to revenue grew from 29.6 to 31.2, extending its lead over HP in that department to 4.6 points. HP still led in server shipments, however, with IBM trailing a distant third.

There’s a fairly easy explanation for this. IBM just came out with its newest mainframe, the System z10, at the end of February. It stands to reason that the orders would flow in during the second quarter, and that they would be big orders — mainframes cost millions of dollars. It will be interesting to see if IBM can maintain that lead in revenue market share in the coming quarters.