Shipments of servers around the world increased by 2.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2007, underlining the need for IT support and helpdesk services.

According to research firm Gartner, revenues from servers reached USD13 billion over the three-month period, with shipments amounting to more than two million units.

IBM remained the top provider, holding a 29.8 per cent market share and generating revenues of USD3.9 billion, closely followed by HP with a market share of 28.5 per cent and revenues of USD3.7 billion.

Sun Microsystems and Dell also performed well, although Fujitsu Siemens saw its own market share decline from 4.2 to 3.8 per cent.

"There were a number of dynamics that affected the market, but the x86 server area was the real growth contributor," said Gartner's Jeffrey Hewitt.

"A strong underlying demand for increased capacity and new applications is driving volume growth despite potential inhibitors like virtualisation and economic concerns."

Overall the market appears to be robust and the IT network support sector will also benefit.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent)