Total server shipments in the third quarter this year were 2.3 million units, a 4.4 percent increase compared to the third quarter of 2007. Hewlett-Packard was the world's top server vendor, shipping 724,024 units, a 11.4 percent increase over last year, giving the company a 31.2 percent market share. Dell was second, shipping 500,470 units, a 3.3 percent increase. IBM was third, shipping 308,524 units, a 3.5 drop compared to last year.

HP was the top x86 server vendor, shipping 708,977 units, taking 31.9 percent of the market and growing 12.3 percent year-over-year. Dell was second, shipping 500,470 units, followed by IBM, which saw shipments drop by 1.8 percent to 278,721 units.

Worldwide server revenue dropped by 5.4 percent to US$12.7 billion compared to last year's third quarter. All major server vendors, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Dell saw server revenues drop during the quarter, with top Unix server vendor Sun Microsystems recording the highest drop of 13.7 percent.

Unix shipments totaled 86,646 units during the third quarter, a 16.1 percent year-over-year decline.