Public cloud spend to hit $72bn

Cloud computing will continue to reshape the IT landscape over the next five years, as spending on public IT cloud services expands at a compound annual growth rate of 27.6% from $21.5 billion in 2010 to $72.9 billion in 2015, according to eWeek.

But the impact of cloud services will extend well beyond IT spending, according to research from IT analytics firm IDC. Cloud services are a critical component in a much larger transformation that IDC expects will drive IT industry growth for the next 25 years, the report said.

In 2015, public cloud services will account for 46% of net new growth in overall IT spending in five key product categories - applications, application development and deployment, systems infrastructure software, basic storage, and servers, according to the report.

Frank Gens, senior VP and chief analyst at IDC, even thinks the winners of the “cloud platform wars” will “likely be the new power brokers of the IT industry,” notes Fierce CIO Tech Watch.

The cloud is akin to the mainframe and PC eras, says Gens, who notes that “the new platform promises to radically expand the users and uses of information technology, leading to a wide and entirely new variety of intelligent industry solutions.”

Ultimately, IDC believes other disruptive technologies like mobile services, wireless networks and social networking will also accelerate cloud adoption.

Information Management reveals that software-oriented cloud services (SaaS) will account for roughly three-quarters of all spending on public cloud services through the forecast period.

The US will dominate overall spending, accounting for nearly 50% of all public cloud services revenues in 2015.