A recent Gartner Survey showed that several companies including Dell, HP, IBM, and Sun Microsystems have all experienced a decline in the number of servers that they are shipping. The survey was based on figures from the fourth quarter of 2008 and it showed that globally, the revenue generated by the sale of servers was down by 15%. This survey also showed that the revenue generated from personal computers declined too.

IBM and HP are the top two producers of servers in the world. Although both have retained their top spots even as the recession has set in, their revenues have been greatly impacted. An analyst with Gartner, Heeral Kota, said that “The weakening economic environment had a deep impact on server market revenues in the fourth quarter as companies put a hold on spending across most market segments.”

During the last quarter of 2008, IBM managed to earn around $4.4 billion. This is a decrease of around 17% based on the same period in 2007 when revenues were around $5.3 billion. It is thought that IBM’s System Z systems contributed quite a bit to their revenue total.

HP was boosted by its ProLiant servers which helped the company generate around $3.9 billion during the fourth quarter. This is a 10% decrease based on figures from 2007. Dell trailed quite a bit behind IBM and HP for the third position with around $1.3 billion worth of revenues.

As economy climate decline, I don’t think IT spending is on anyone’s priority right now. Let’s just hope it does not continue to fall.