The market for blade servers is set to grow considerably in the coming years and much of the extra demand for these products will come from small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), a report suggests.

According to electricnews.net, IBM is predicting that the worldwide market for blade servers will be worth $11 billion by 2010 - it is now thought to be worth $4 billion.

Blade servers are self-contained computer servers, designed for high density use. They typically contain processors, memory, storage, and network connections, but share the common power supply and cooling system of the chassis. This means that it is easier for SMEs to upgrade systems when required.

"Over the last five years there have been less and less discussions [amongst businesses] about why they should use blades and more about how do they get them into their company," Doug Balog, of IBM, told the website.

"The small and medium business sector is about to explode with blades," he added. "Power cooling only became an issue two years ago but now all of our customers seem to be talking about."

Recently, the Carbon Trust revealed that SMEs were keen to embrace technology that would allow them to reduce their emissions and waste. The use of blade servers could help achieve this goal for some businesses.