By Bill Ives
Expert Author
Article Date: 2011-05-06
The global cloud computing market will grow from $40.7 billion in 2011 to more than $241 billion in 2020, according to new Forrester forecast data reported in Sizing The Cloud by Stefan Ried, Ph.D. and Holger Kisker, Ph.D. Based on Forrester's cloud market taxonomy, this new report outlines the different market dynamics for the three core layers of cloud computing - the public cloud, the virtual private cloud, and the private cloud. The total size of the public cloud market will grow from $25.5 billion in 2011 to $159.3 billion in 2020. The market for virtual private cloud solutions will grow from $7.5 billion in 2011 to $66.4 billion in 2020. The market for private cloud solutions will grow from $7.8 billion in 2011 to $15.9 billion in 2020.
The cloud market will change as we move toward 2020. While the successes of early leaders have prompted many other providers to offer IaaS solutions, Forrester feels that this market will reach a peak of $5.9 billion in global revenues in 2014 and then enter a period of significant commoditization, price deterioration, and margin pressure. SaaS represents the largest and most sustainable growth opportunity, thanks to rapidly increasing demand from companies of all sizes. At the same time Forrester believes that desktop virtualization is reaching the end of its cycle of innovation, while a new set of technologies that allow virtualization of large-scale, server-based enterprise applications are starting to become more important.The market is not one-dimensional and is maturing at different levels and serves different groups within the enterprise. As the report suggests, cloud value propositions are compelling to individual end users, corporate buyers, and tech providers such as independent software vendors (ISVs). As a result, the benefits of cloud computing range from personal productivity to operational flexibility to cost savings.
Cloud-based solutions and services will continue to be useful in a rapidly changing market as companies can more easily align their underlying operational processes and systems as their business requirements change. I covered several of these trends. On Wednesday I posted, Can Cloud Computing Elevate the Role of IT, Making It More Strategic? I have also written several times on the rise of cloud based apps in a down market. I was pleased to receive a review copy of this useful report. You can find it at the Forrester site.
Comments
