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IDC: Blades Blast Off

Blade servers are hot, and nearly half of them have Fibre Channel connectivity, says IDC
May 28, 2005

Blade servers are selling like hotcakes, according to a report from IDC, and storage networking is a key factor.

During the first quarter of 2005, blade server shipments grew 68.2 percent, and overall factory revenue rose 106 percent year-over-year, according to IDC's "Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker," published this week. While still just 3.4 percent of the world's $12.1 billion total quarterly server revenue, blade servers are well ahead of the market's 5.3 percent growth rate.

Storage networking is a key aspect of blade servers' success, according to Matt Eastwood, program VP of worldwide server research at IDC. "Blades are being positioned for infrastructure and application tier consolidation, so storage is a big part of that," he says. "Forty to 50 percent of blade servers shipping today are attached to Fibre Channel switches."

Despite being a high-growth, emerging market, the blade server space is oddly consolidated, Eastwood notes. IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) together own over 60 percent of overall revenue. Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL), Fujitsu Siemens Computers, and NEC Corp. (Nasdaq: NIPNY; Tokyo: 6701) account for about another 16 percent, and other suppliers for the rest.

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