Most financial analysts feel that cloud computing will be a huge growth area in terms of IT
spending and revenue streams over the next few years, but the estimates
vary.According to a May 2008 forecast by Merrill Lynch, the volume of the cloud computing market
opportunity will amount to $160 billion by 2011, including $95 billion in
business and productivity applications and $65 billion in online
advertising.
According to a March 2009 forecast by Gartner, worldwide cloud services are on pace to surpass
$56.3 billion in 2009, a 21.3% increase from 2008 revenues of $46.4
billion. The market is expected to reach $150.1 billion in 2013.
“Cloud computing is a broad and diverse phenomenon. Much of the
growth represents a transfer of traditional IT services to the new cloud
model, but there is also scope for creation of substantial new businesses
and revenue streams,” said Ben Pring, research vice president for Gartner. “Cloud
computing enables a shift in IT provision from direct purchase and payment
for services to provision of services which are free at point of use and
where revenue is derived from advertising. Services supported by
advertising are currently, and will remain, the largest component of the
overall cloud services market through 2013.”
According to an IDC October 2008 forecast, spending on IT cloud services is growing at five times the rate of
traditional, on-premises IT. Also according to IDC, even more striking
than this high growth rate is the contribution that the cloud offering’s
growth will soon make to the IT market’s overall growth. As illustrated in
Figure 1, cloud
computing services will generate approximately one-third of the net new
growth within the industry.
Additionally, according to IDC and illustrated in Figure 2, projected spending on
cloud services will nearly triple by 2012, and will continue to be
dominated by SaaS offerings over this period of time. But as you can see from
the sheer scale of the increase in overall cloud services spending,
platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) services will also experience strong growth.
So, the analysts seem to be sold on the growth potential of cloud
computing. What about IT and business leaders?
