Workstations show signs of life

Gartner found workstation shipments increased 1.6 percent over the second quarter, marking the second quarter of growth after the five quarters of decline that followed the market peak in 2000.

The Dataquest survey placed Dell as the leading workstation vendor, increased its lead over No 2. HP and netting market share of 40.5 percent during the quarter. HP took 22.1 percent of the market, followed by IBM, which with 15.3 percent share, leapfrogged Sun into third spot. Sun accounted for 14.4 percent of all shipments, Dataquest found.

"Any sign of growth is a welcome change," said Dataquest analyst Pia Rieppo in a statement. "Given that this is only the second consecutive quarter of modest growth, we're hesitant to say the workstation market is completely out of the woods," she said.