"It shows that enterprises, the typical customer for Unix
servers, have more money to spend than the SMB market, so there was
less decline in the high end, according to Dan Harrington, research
analyst with IDC's Enterprise Platforms Group. ""There was probably
a lot of planning involved in 'the high-end' market than there is
in the low end market, so the money was likely already allocated
for the purchase," he told InternetNews.com. "It's a lot easier to
freeze the purchases on smaller volume servers, but if a customer
had spent six months getting ready to buy an IBM z Server, they
aren't going to cancel that.""