According to IDC, the market for Itanium-based servers will grow to approximately $6.6 billion by 2009. The fast projected growth rate of Itanium servers compares with 3.4 percent for the overall server market.

Based on interviews with 501 members of IDC's Enterprise Server Customer Panel, the report cites high customer satisfaction and solid intent-to-purchase ratings for Itanium-based servers. In addition, more than two-thirds of HP PA-RISC server customers interviewed plan to migrate to Itanium.

The IDC report indicates that the formation of the Itanium Solutions Alliance and the recent commitment by the alliance's founding members to invest $10 billion in developing the Itanium platform will significantly influence adoption of the server by customers.

The report also notes that Itanium is more clearly positioned as a solution for mission-critical applications such as enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and business intelligence.