IBM #1 in Worldwide Server Revenue for 2006

IBM Maintains Leadership on Blade and UNIX Servers

Gartner reported that IBM continues to hold the number one position in worldwide server revenue share, with 32 percent revenue share for 2006. IBM has held this leadership in worldwide server revenue share for 8 consecutive years according to Gartner.

IBM's leadership position in global server revenue in 2006 was bolstered by noteworthy revenue growth in its System z business.

In 2006 IBM introduced the System z Business Class mainframe, teamed with industry leaders such as Oracle and SAP to drive innovation on the platform, and extended its customer base and drove new workloads onto the platform via specialty processors for Linux and Java workloads.

"Mainframes are important to our customers today. We believe the launch of the System z Business Class mainframe during the year, as well a $100 million investment to simplify the platform and the uptake of workloads driven by the launch of specialty processors for Linux and Java workloads, have made System z an extremely effective platform for our customers," said Bill Zeitler, senior vice president and group executive for IBM Systems & Technology Group.

IBM also grew revenue with its System x business, which includes IBM BladeCenter® system, by 7 percent YTY in 2006. According to Gartner, IBM led the year with 41.1 percent of revenue share for blades in 2006. In 2006 IBM introduced two new high performance BladeCenter systems, BladeCenter H and BladeCenter HT, which allow data to travel up to 10 times faster than previously possible across corporate networks with 1Gb equipment.

IBM also maintained its leadership in UNIX® servers with 30.1 percent server revenue share in 2006 - IBM.