Cloud Service to Continue to Evolve in Next Few Years says IDC

After five years of vigorous development, cloud services and technologies are no longer simply used to replace ageing or costly on-premises infrastructure and the scene will continue to evolve in the next few years, according to International Data Corporation`s (IDC).

However, in terms of the number of vendors in the market, IDC is of the view that about 30% of suppliers currently in the cloud market will be out of business by 2015 as it is a relatively new market with many players entering and leaving the playing field. Therefore, it is imperative for chief information officers (CIOs) to ensure due diligence when selecting a cloud service provider.

Chris Morris, Associate Vice President for Asia/Pacific Cloud Services and Computing, said "Today, cloud services adoption is being driven as much by business managers as it is by the CIOs. To successfully adopt cloud services, involvement with the entire cloud ecosystem is necessary. On top of core technology management skills, enterprise cloud sourcing will require extended sourcing management skills, scarce service management skills and provider management skills, all of which are not often found in the average IT organization."

A year ago, IDC predicted that by 2015, Cloud-Based services will be available to meet every business requirement. For small- to medium-sized enterprises (SME), that scenario is the case now. To maximize business agility, CIOs are starting to use these services, driven by the line-of-business (LOB) managers. "The Cloud" is no longer a marketing label as the evolution of cloud services will mean that it permeates the sourcing strategies of the CIO and business unit manager alike, IDC said.