Cloud IT Share to Double in Next 4 Years

According to a new IPC forecast, IT cloud spending is set to more than double between 2013 and 2017. From PCB Design:

Worldwide spending on public IT cloud services will reach $47.4 billion in 2013 and is expected to be more than $107 billion in 2017, according to a new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC). Over the 2013–2017 forecast period, public IT cloud services will have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.5%, five times that of the IT industry as a whole.

As one of the key technologies enabling the industry-wide shift to the 3rd Platform, cloud computing has played a crucial role in changing the way companies consume and use information technology. Now, there are signs that cloud services are starting to shift into a “Chapter Two” phase where the scale of cloud adoption will not only be much bigger, but also more user and solution driven. In this phase of growth, cloud and the other 3rd Platform technologies – mobile, social, and Big Data – will become even more interdependent as they continue to drive growth and innovation across all industries that depend on IT.

Time and time again we hear how the world is moving towards the integrated, powerful, specific, yet simple cloud model. Solutions like a policy management solution can address a specific business need without any IT customization. As the cloud becomes more and more integrated with traditional IT infrastructure, the cloud is set to increase its marketshare greatly.

An important factor driving growth in public IT cloud services spending is the expanding variety of cloud deployment options. The growing richness of these options is a clear accelerator for overall cloud services adoption. The emergence of virtual private cloud (VPC) offerings has helped to shift momentum from dedicated private cloud offerings toward public (shared/multi-tenant) cloud offerings. By offering the attributes of public cloud (economics, scale, pace of innovation) with some of the privacy and control features associated with private cloud, VPCs are effectively addressing many of the objections that have held customers back from the cloud model.