Revenue from so-called volume high-end servers grew 18.2% and continues to drive the server market. Midrange enterprise server sales declined 10.2%, the third straight quarterly decline. High-end enterprise servers grew 1.9%, the forth consecutive quarter of growth.

"IT spending remained strong overall in the third quarter as customers continued to refresh and expand their IT infrastructures," said Matt Eastwood, program director of global enterprise server solutions at IDC. "Although customers continue to target data center simplification initiatives, investment in strategic IT initiatives - including new workloads - are also growing significantly once again."

IBM retained the top spot worldwide with 31.7% market share, up 6.3%. HP, the shipments leader, was second in revenues (26.8% share), up 2.9%. Sun and Dell were third at 10.2% and 10.1%, respectively. Dell grew 14.1% year-over-year while Sun was flat at 0.1%.

Top 5 OEMs, Worldwide Server Systems Factory Revenue (millions)

• IBM   $3,659   31.7%
• Hewlett-Packard  $3,094 26.8%
• Sun   $1,176 10.2%
• Dell    $1,170 10.1%
• Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens   $714 6.2%
• Others   $1,733 15%