In 2008, as the EMEA server market started to feel the pressure due to the macroeconomic situation, blade servers once more represented the main driver of growth, increasing their revenue by more than one third compared to 2007.

"We expect blade growth to continue further in 2009 and beyond, pushed by increased consolidation needs within budget-constrained companies and by vendors escalating the number of integrated, richly configured solution blocks based on a scalable layer of blade servers, in an attempt to decommoditize the upper end of the volume business," said Giorgio Nebuloni, research analyst with IDC European Systems and Infrastructure Solutions.