Businesses are subscribing to software, storage and computing power delivered over the Internet at a jaw-dropping pace. Over the next five years, global spending on cloud-computing services will increase at a pace five times greater than the growth of the information technology (IT) industry as a whole. To survive in this new landscape, technology makers will have to completely redefine their products, business models and cultures.
Instead of selling direct to the corporations that actually use computing services, hardware, software and infrastructure vendors will all need to pivot to serve the new cloud services new market. That’s the lesson from the latest forecasts by market researcher IDC.
The difference is stark. IDC estimates companies will spend $100 billion on IT cloud services by 2016. That compares to $40 billion companies are expected to spend this year and represents a five-year, compound annual growth rate of more than 26%.
