In Gartner and IDC's quarterly server sales reports, x86-based server sales leapt forward for the third quarter, driving overall spend gains in server sales over last year's 3Q. UNIX servers, on the other hand, may still be mired in the economic mud of 2010.

While x86-based servers saw 14.9 percent gains in units and 29.5 percent in revenue, Gartner reports, RISC/Itanium UNIX servers remained in a slump with drops of 10.1 percent in shipments and 9.5 percent in vendor revenue compared with the same quarter last year. 

"This year has been very challenging for RISC Itanium Unix vendors," Adrian O’Connell, research director at Gartner, says. "The outlook for 2011 poses continued challenges for server vendors as revenue is expected to grow by only 0.8 percent. A weak economic environment will inhibit overall levels of server spending which will place a premium on vendors who are able to successfully execute on competitive attack programs."

IDC's numbers are similar to Gartner's findings: Volume systems experienced the sharpest improvement with year-over-year revenue increasing 22.8 percent, the fourth consecutive quarter of positive growth for the segment. 

"The server market experienced its strongest growth in 10 years in the third quarter of 2010," notes Matt Eastwood, group vice president of Enterprise Platforms at IDC. "All geographic regions exhibited positive growth for the second consecutive quarter as the infrastructure build-out and refresh extends across SMB, enterprise, public sector, and cloud/hoster organizations. While much of the third quarter refresh occurred in x86 and CISC-based mainframes, IDC expects the recovery to extend to Unix platforms in the fourth quarter of 2010."

According to IDC, UNIX servers experienced 9.7 percent year over year revenue decline to $2.5 billion, representing 21.5 percent of quarterly servers for the quarter. UNIX server share of worldwide server spending was down 5.5 points over 3Q09 as many customers continue to defer UNIX system upgrades.

"The UNIX server market continued to see worldwide revenue decline, driven by reduced unit shipments in the high end and volume segments, and by intense competition between the top vendors that is eroding average sales prices for many models," notes Jean S. Bozman, research vice president of Enterprise Servers at IDC. "However, the third quarter data shows that unit shipments in the midrange UNIX server segment ($25,000 to $250,000) actually increased year over year, as did revenue for those servers. This growth in midrange UNIX servers is likely the result of workload consolidation from aging UNIX servers -- and of IT build-outs for telco, banking, and government infrastructure in fast-growing economies worldwide."