Bozman, however, was quick to point out that Linux's main rival Windows also showed strong growth. Revenue from the servers running the Microsoft Corp.-owned operating system rose 16.1 percent year-over-year and unit shipments gained 23.3 percent. Windows servers accounted for $3.9 billion in the fourth quarter, representing 31.7 percent of the server market revenue.
"The Windows market is much bigger than Linux, and it is also growing," Bozman said.
X86 servers, which run on processors built by Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., generated 15 percent more revenue than a year ago in the fourth quarter to $5.5 billion, approaching the $5.8 billion from RISC-based servers. Unit shipments of x86 servers increased 23 percent to 1.4 million servers.
AMD's traction in the first year shipping its Opteron processor, which supports 32-bit and 64-bit applications, as well as Intel's announcement of 64-bit extensions to its x86 architecture, show that the market is continuing to evolve, IDC said. As a result, the firm expected this year to be a "tipping point" for x86 server adoption, meaning it could surpass RISC servers in revenue.
"Linux server growth continued to accelerate, demonstrating that Linux servers are taking on important roles in IT customers' computing infrastructure," IDC analyst Jean Bozman said in a statement.
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