All pointing skywards for cloud computing

Peter Dinham
Sunday, 24 May 2009 15:09

IT Industry - Market

According to Smith, who authored the report on cloud computing, the greatest growth in expenditure upon cloud services will be around collaborative applications, IT management applications, personal and business applications and storage.

“Thus, IT suppliers must develop strong cloud application propositions, especially through providing software as a service (SaaS) platforms and partnerships to such providers.”

Smith says that in the short to medium term, growth in public cloud usage will be greatest among small to medium sized organisations, and growth of cloud computing among larger organisations will be slower, with these more likely to employ hybrid and private clouds as the market matures toward 2014.

“Significant vertical market specialisation will begin to take place among cloud service suppliers from 2011, particularly around manufacturing, health, energy, finance and media,” predicts Smith, adding that there is also a significant risk that smaller and more recently launched IT suppliers will “leave behind long established suppliers in the innovation and provision of cloud services.”

Smith also says it is vital that IT suppliers work together to increase trust in cloud services among IT users and “act on their concerns.”

“Issues for buyers include security, reliability and transparency, along with the development of common standards that enable interoperability; portability of applications, software and data across cloud services; and management consistency,” observes Smith.

On the question of security risks associated with cloud computing, Smith says these risks “tend to be exaggerated,” and he adds, “rather than increase risks related to security, availability and performance among others, cloud computing is likely to significantly reduce these.”
CONTINUED page 3