One in four cloud providers will be gone by 2015

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Patrick Thibodeau.

Cloud adopters face serious risk in the next two years because of the strong possibility that their provider will be acquired or forced out of business, according to Gartner. The research firm is predicting a major consolidation in cloud services and estimates that about 25% of the top 100 IT service providers in the infrastructure space won’t be around by 2015. "One in four vendors will be gone for whatever reason — acquisition, bankruptcy," said William Maurer, a Gartner analyst. Most of the time, the changes will come through acquisition.

"There is real risk," said Maurer to a packed room for his presentation at the Gartner Data Center Conference. "We’re in the phase of buyer beware with cloud," said Michael Salvador, who attended the presentation. He is a technical solutions manager at Belden, which makes cable, connectivity and networking products…

"You better do your research — there’s no safety net out there," he said. Concerns about risks may drive some users to large vendors, Salvador said, but smaller providers may offer better prices or some additional guarantee that a large provider may not offer…

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