Worldwide server shipments for the third quarter of 2007 increased 8.7 percent over the same quarter last year, while worldwide server revenue for the same period climbed 2.6 percent according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide server revenue totaled $13.4 billion for the quarter, as worldwide servers shipments reached just over 2.2 million units. "This quarter the server market grew both in units and revenue, driven by x86 market volumes in the quarter, while RISC-Itanium UNIX servers revenue grew at 8 percent.” said Errol Rasit, senior analyst at Gartner. “Underlying market dynamics such as growth from emerging markets, coupled with an ongoing demand for increased capacity, are stronger than any inhibitors such as server virtualization. Any implications from financial market instability were not visible in the server market in the third quarter.” IBM continued to lead the worldwide server market based on revenue. It had increases for the quarter in System p and System x, while it experienced declines in System z and System i, which combined to produce an overall revenue decline of 8 percent for the quarter. IBM’s shipments fell just under 4 percent for the quarter, and it lost just under 2 percent of shipment share on a worldwide basis. In server shipments, Hewlett-Packard grew 20.2 percent compared to the third quarter of 2006, and retained its worldwide server shipment lead. HP finished the quarter with 26.5 percent shipment share for the period. ISS continued to execute strongly and gained share in the x86 segment. The BCS division benefited from a comparison with a weak third quarter last year, although the performance this year was still good. Investments that HP has made in its account coverage and go to market activities now seem to be paying off across the server business Dell enjoyed its second quarter running of shipment growth and grew by 5.4, and gained 0.7 percent in share which is a reflection of Dell’s steadily improving results each quarter. Sun’s SPARC Enterprise servers boosted revenue results in the quarter which resulted in an 11.4 percent growth in revenue but Sun experienced a 4.5 percent decline in server shipments. Sun’s focus on product margins over volumes contributed to this volume decline. Fujitsu/FSC grew 17.4 percent in shipments and grew 3.4 percent in server revenue. Shipment growth was driven by FSC’s x86-based Primergy business in EMEA. The blade server segment continued to drive growth in the third quarter. Worldwide blade server shipments grew 13.8 percent, accounting for 10 percent of server shipment share. HP retained its lead in this segment with the most significant shipment increase at 91 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Sun’s re-entry into the server blade market in 2006 saw it climb from the No. 9 position to the No. 4 largest blade server vendor.