While server technology is proceeding apace -- see my column, "AMD, Intel Remake Servers From Processor Up" (here) -- shipments themselves are being challenged by the overall economic environment. That picture is apparent in the latest worldwide server market report from Gartner, with results from the second quarter of 2009. One bright spot is that blades sagged less than any other segment.The daunting news is that worldwide server shipments fell 28% in Q2 of 2009, as compared to the second quarter of 2009. Revenue was down 29%, year over year.

As Gartner vice president of research Jeffrey Hewitt delicately phrased it in the Gartner press release: "The server market remains constrained on a worldwide level."

On the revenue front, all of the top 5 server vendors -- IBM, HP, Dell, Sun, and Fujitsu -- suffered double-digit declines in terms of dollars they took in, Gartner reported. Unit shipments (as distinct from revenues) were also down, with seven of the top 10 vendors showing double-digit unit decreases. (The release lists only the top 5 by name.)

As for that bright spot about blades, the Gartner news is that "the least impacted server segment was x86 blade servers, which fell 23.6 per cent in units and 13.6 per cent in vendor revenue for the second quarter." Bigger boxes faired far poorer, with RISC and Itanium revenues off 38 per cent.

The Gartner release pretty much speaks for itself, so let me cease paraphrasing and simply quote from the meaty parts of the document, which explain the market positioning of the revenue and shipments leaders:

"IBM continued to lead the worldwide server market based on revenue. The company posted just over $3 billion in server vendor revenue for a total share of 32.5 per cent worldwide for the second quarter of 2009. This share was up 1 per cent from the same period last year. While IBM retained the No. 1 spot, it sustained a 27.1 per cent revenue decline, with all of its server brands posting year-on-year decreases.

In server shipments, Hewlett-Packard remained the worldwide leader for the second quarter of 2009 despite a shipment decline of 26.1 per cent for the year (see Table 2). All of HP's server brands had a year-on-year decline for the period."

Here are Gartner's tables:

Gartner's worldwide server revenue estimates for the second quarter of 2009. (Click to view table.)

Gartner's worldwide server revenue estimates for the second quarter of 2009. (Click to view table.)

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Alex Wolfe is editor-in-chief of InformationWeek.com.