An Enterprise Server is a computer that stores programs serving the collective needs of an enterprise rather than a single user or department.

Historically, mainframe-sized computers have functioned as enterprise servers (although they were not referred to as servers until recently). As these computers have become smaller, faster and able to manage the same enterprise-scale software assets, they have become known as enterprise servers.

An enterprise server can refer to both the computer hardware and its main software, the operating system. Some companies use the term “enterprise server” to describe a “super program” that runs under a computer’s operating system and provides services for the system administrator, business applications and more specialized servers that run in the computer. Previously, such services were sometimes considered part of the operating system itself or came in separate software packages. For example, many services provided by an enterprise server tended to be available only on IBM or similar mainframes, while less powerful computers ran specialized applications.