Sometimes all you need are statistics to tell the story of who the technology leader is in the competitive server market.

As Gartner Research's Q4 statistics reveal, IBM is out front every which way.

IBM achieved 32.7 percent share in the overall server market for Q4 - a market that was down 3 percent year-to-year. In comparison Sun held 7.6 percent in overall market and HP had 31.3 percent.

For the fiscal 2009 year, IBM lead with 32 percent share, up .7 points, in a market that fell 18 percent compared to fiscal year 2008.

Big Blue also led in specific server markets. It achieved 37.9 percent share for Q4 in Unix servers despite the market itself losing 18 percent growth compared to a year ago. Sun held 26.2 percent and HP had 28.1 percent.

For the fiscal year IBM was the Unix leader with 37.1 percent share, an increase of 3.8 points from a year earlier.

The same rosy picture continues with x86 servers. IBM's System x share grew 37 percent year-to-year in the fourth quarter of 2009 and for the fiscal year it achieved 17.5 percent share, up 1.8 points.

Just imagine what IBM will accomplish in the post-recession years ahead.