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Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) posted its highest-ever share of the global server market — 18.8% — as competitors International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) both lost share. That s the good news for Dell; the bad news is that the worldwide market is shrinking.

According to the latest data from International Data Corp. (IDC), factory revenue in the worldwide server market fell 6.2% in the second quarter of 2013, from $12.64 billion in the second quarter of last year to $11.86 billion. IBM maintained its top spot in both market share and revenue, with a 27.9% share and sales of $3.31 billion. Those totals represent a loss of 1.2% of market share and 10% lower revenue.

HP remained in second place, but like IBM, saw market share decline from 29.5% in the second quarter of 2012 to 25.9% and revenues shrink by 17.5%, from $3.72 billion to $3.07 billion.

Dell’s market share rose from 16.0% to 18.8% and revenues rose 10.3%, from $2.02 billion to $2.23 billion.

Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) also lost share and posted lower revenues, while fifth place Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) gained 1.5% of market share and saw revenues rise by 42.6%. Cisco’s total second-quarter revenues, however, amounted to just $537 million.

Demand for Windows Server from Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) fell 5.1% year-over-year, although quarterly Windows Server hardware revenue totaled $5.8 billion, nearly half of all factory revenue for the quarter. Unix-based servers continue to lose share as Linux-based servers continue to post gains. Linux now accounts for 23.2% of all server shipments while Unix servers have dropped to 15.1%, the lowest ever total, according to IDC. IBM’s z/OS accounted for 9.8% server factory revenue.

Data center growth and cloud-based computing are driving what growth there is, but the uncertain economic environment acts as an anchor to sustained gains as server customers seek more efficiency and lower infrastructure costs.