According to IDC‘s Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualization Tracker, worldwide virtualization license shipments in the second quarter of 2008 (2Q08) increased 53% year over year, compared to a 72% year-over-year increase the previous quarter. The x86 server market led the way with 60% year-over-year growth followed by the EPIC server market with 18% growth. Worldwide CISC and RISC server virtualization licenses declined 15% and 7% year over year, respectively.
Worldwide new server shipments virtualized increased 52% year over year in the second quarter, compared to 70% growth in 1Q08.
Worldwide virtualization software revenue grew 15% year over year in 2Q08, compared to 32% growth in the first quarter of 2008. The growth in virtualization software revenue primarily came from the x86 server market, which grew 39% year over year. EPIC virtualization software revenue also increased year over year, albeit at a slower pace of 9%.
Hewlett-Packard held onto its number 1 spot for worldwide new server shipments virtualized with 34% market share and 52% year-over-year growth. This growth was driven by a solid performance in sales of Intel-based processors. Dell solidified its position as the number 2 vendor with its market share growing from 25% in 1Q08 to 29% in the second quarter, powered by 110% year-over-year growth. Dell’s strong performance was driven by solid growth of Intel-based processors and a very strong performance from AMD-based sales. IBM remained in the third position with 16% market share. IBM achieved 32% year-over-year growth driven by a solid performance from its Power Systems servers. This was the first quarter in the last year in which IBM saw positive growth in its new RISC-based server shipments virtualized.
VMware grew its x86 server virtualization software business 27% year over year and maintained the number 1 position in the market with 78% revenue share in 2Q08. When looking at new x86 virtualization licenses, VMware continues to hold on to its strong position in the x86 market with a combined market share of VMware ESX and VMware Server at 44%. However, in its first quarter of general availability Microsoft Hyper-V delivered a strong showing, and when combined with Virtual Server 2005, Microsoft’s market share is 23% of new shipments.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualization Tracker is a quantitative tool for analyzing the global server market on a quarterly basis. The Tracker includes quarterly virtualization license shipments, new server shipments virtualized, virtualized server revenue and virtualization software revenue, segmented by region, cpu type, vendor, form factor, sockets, virtualization platform, and primary guest operating system.
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