HP 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 by industry analyst firm IDC.

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

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 architecture and ProLiant family of servers in the second quarter of 2007. HP maintained its commanding lead as the No. 1x86 server vendor, with 34.8 per cent unit market share, growing at 18.2 percent year over year in a market that grew unit shipments 7.8 per cent.