Cloud computing driving big changes in IT services market

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 20 January 2010 07:46

IT Industry - Market

Cloud computing and its rapidly increasing adoption is the standout focus in IDC’s predictions for the Australian IT services market this year, with IDC describing cloud computing as emerging from a “mere catchphrase to be IT's prodigal son.”

With the Australian economy forecast to grow at a rate of 3.5 percent this year, IDC predicts an increase in outsourcing projects stemming from cloud computing, which it says “represents a new dawn in enterprise computing,” as business leaders in Australia begin to ready their companies for the “big changes that lie ahead.”

IDC’s research manager and analyst, Matthew Oostveen, says that facilitating the predicted big changes will be services organisations from consultants to systems integrators, and he predicts a stark increase in the uptake of services originating from server virtualisation and datacentre optimisation as organisations look to both consolidate their infrastructure and reduce the operational expenditure.

“Australians are a tech savvy bunch so it stands to reason that Australia has the leading uptake of server virtualisation in the Asia Pacific region, which has lead to a large installed base of virtualised servers with high levels of services attached.”

Oostveen says that at the end of what he describes as a tumultuous year in 2009 noteworthy for the rise of disruptive technologies and strained economic conditions, there will be an ongoing need to contain costs in 2010, which he says will continue to drive the outsourcing and hosting services market.

“The overall services market will benefit both from cost reduction and operational efficiency measures generated by the difficult economic climate in 2009 and the slow recovery expected in 2010.”

On cloud computing, Oostveen says that, in time, 2009 will be remembered as the year the cloud was seeded.
 
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