Global revenue from server sales for deployment of private cloud services will grow by more than 60 percent within five years and server sales driven by the private cloud market will increase by more than 20 percent within the same timeframe, according to IDC's first analysis of the cloud market from the perspective of server vendors.

According to the market research firm, cloud-driven server sales will increase because of the beginning of economic recovery, the fact that many machines installed today are outdated and the IT managers' need to reduce complexity of their physical and virtual infrastructure.

\"Now is a great time for many IT organizations to begin seriously considering this technology and employing public and private clouds in order to simplify sprawling IT environments,\" IDC research analyst Katherine Broderick said in a statement.

\"Many vendors are strategically advancing into the private and public cloud spaces and these players are widely varied and have differing levels of commitment.\"

The company's study of the market revealed that server sales driven by private clouds will grow from $7.3 billion in 2009 to $11.8 billion in 2014.

Server revenues driven by growth in the public-cloud market will grow from $582 million in 2009 to $718 million in 2014.

IDC's definition of public cloud is \"being open to a largely unrestricted universe of potential users; designed for a market, not for a single enterprise.\" The company defines a private cloud as \"designed for, and access restricted to, a single enterprise (or extended enterprise).\"

Almost half of respondents (44 percent) to a recent IDC survey said they were considering a private-cloud option.

The company forecasts that public cloud will enjoy much less broad adoption than private cloud and will also be less enterprise-focused than the private alternative.