Earlier this year, advisory firm Gartner released figures which projected that 2010 would see global cloud services revenue reaching $68.3bn; a 16.6% increase from the $58.6bn recorded in 2009.

But that is not all; the industry is poised for strong growth through 2014, when worldwide cloud services revenue is expected to reach $148.8bn.

Indeed, according to Gartner estimates, enterprises will spend $112bn cumulatively on software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), combined over the course of the next five years.

With such forecast and figures on the line it is no wonder HP and Dell are both keen to increase their share of the cloud computing pie as the bidding for data storage firm 3Par over the last week has illustrated.

However, raising the stakes on 3Par is not the only thing HP is doing as it looks to position itself in the cloud computing segment.

The company has also announced the launch of HP CloudStart, the industry’s first all-in-one solution for deploying an open and flexible private cloud environment within 30 days.

Built on HP Converged Infrastructure, HP CloudStart simplifies and speeds private cloud deployments. Consisting of hardware, software and services, HP CloudStart empowers businesses to deliver pay-per-use services reliably and securely from a common portal, and offers the ability to scale and deploy new services automatically. Furthermore, real-time access to consumption and chargeback reports allows clients to operate their private clouds in the same fashion as a public cloud.

Currently, North American and European markets represent the largest markets from a geographic perspective, and all have seen an increased adoption of cloud computing and cloud services among enterprises.

However, emerging markets – like Asia – are likely to see an increase in growth over the medium term.

Indeed, according to Gartner, the US share of the worldwide cloud services market is likely to be diluted to 50% by 2014 (down from 60% in 2009), as other countries and regions begin to adopt cloud services in more-significant volumes.

Perhaps anticipating the rise of commercial opportunities in other regions and markets, Japanese electronics company NEC decided to set up a joint venture with Neusoft, China’s largest IT outsourcing provider, to offer cloud computing services in the country; NEC’s first move to offer such services outside its home market.

According to NEC’s projections, the cloud computing market in China to grow to $2.3bn by 2012, expanding at an average pace of 30% each year.

In meantime, cloud computing still raises strong concerns to issues such as security, availability of service, vendor viability and maturity. But this may not be deterrent enough in the war over 3Par, which according to analyst may see HP victorious.