New Q3 data from Synergy Research Group shows that HPE maintained a narrow lead over Cisco in the strategically important cloud infrastructure equipment market, while Dell EMC is now challenging the top two after the completion of their historic merger. Meanwhile, ODMs (contract manufacturers) in aggregate continue to increase their share of the market, driven by continued heavy investments in data centers by hyperscale cloud providers. Microsoft and IBM round out the group of top cloud infrastructure vendors. HPE and Cisco have been in a closely contested leadership battle in this market for the last sixteen quarters, over which time their total revenues are virtually identical. Across the different types of cloud deployment, Cisco continues to hold a commanding lead in public cloud infrastructure while HPE has a clear lead in private cloud.