HP Extends Blade Lead

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- HP (NYSE:HPQ) extended its lead in the worldwide blade server market in both total blade server units shipped and factory revenue, according to second calendar quarter 2007 server market figures released today by industry analyst firm IDC.(1)

HP significantly increased its lead as the No. 1 blade server vendor in the period with 47.2 percent total factory revenue share, a year-over-year factory revenue growth rate of 71.9 percent.

As businesses require more powerful and scalable computing solutions for traditional applications and new workloads such as Web 2.0, high-performance computing and gaming, HP saw increased demand for its HP BladeSystem c-Class (http://www.hp.com/go/bladesystem) architecture and ProLiant (http://www.hp.com/go/proliant) family of servers in the second quarter of 2007. HP maintained its commanding lead as the No. 1 x86 server vendor, with 34.8 percent unit market share, growing at 18.2 percent year over year in a market that grew unit shipments 7.8 percent.

As the worldwide server market accelerated overall, HP held its No. 1 position in unit shipments for the 21st straight quarter, increasing its server units by 17.4 percent year over year in the second quarter and growing unit shipments the fastest of the top five vendors in the worldwide server market. With impressive growth across its ProLiant, Integrity and BladeSystem families, HP captured 33.7 percent total unit shipment share, shipping more than one out of every three servers in the world; it also grew server factory revenue faster than the market.

HP’s continued market leadership demonstrates we are successfully investing in areas critical for our customers’ success,” said Scott Stallard, senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Storage and Servers, HP. “HP’s innovation across our server and BladeSystem portfolios is driving customer preference that competitors cannot match and makes us a key technology partner for today’s environments and those to come.”IDC

Hewlett-Packard Co.