Not storage related, but similar story for servers from IDC:
The global market for servers was mostly steady in the second quarter of 2021, according to analyst firm IDC, as the market recovers from 2020's unusual demands.
The headline figures of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker are $23.6 billion and 3.2 million. The former represents Q2 server revenue, a 2.5 per cent year on year decline, while the latter is shipment numbers and grew 0.1 per cent year-on-year.
HPE and Dell were rated jo--t leaders of the market as measured by revenue, as they racked up $3.704 billion and $3.680 billion respectively. Dell shipped 529,804 servers for the quarter, handily topping HPE's 446,168.
IBM had a different story to tell, as its $1.17 billion quarterly revenue made it the fifth-placed vendor on that metric – but it didn’t crack the top five for shipments. Power boxes ain't cheap, after all. And perhaps they aren't very in-demand, either – Big Blue's revenue was down 19.5 per cent year-on-year.
At least IBM wasn't alone in struggling to do deals for big iron. IDC found that high-end server revenue declined by 32.7 per cent to $1.3 billion. Mid-range server revenue also fell, by 30.0 per cent to $2.4 billion and volume server revenue was up 5.6 per cent to nearly $20 billion.