News
COVID-19 Fuels Cloud Computing Spending Boom
One of the few bright spots in the enterprise IT space recently has been cloud computing, which has seen increased spending since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic that, among other things, caused a massive shift to work-from-home schemes across the country.
According to new research from Gartner, that spending is only going to increase going forward. The firm says the proportion of IT spending moving to the cloud will increase in the aftermath of the pandemic. Specifically, cloud spending is projected to make up 14.2 percent of the total global enterprise IT spending market in 2024. In 2020, it was 9.1 percent. What's more, almost 70 percent of organizations now using cloud services plan to increase cloud spending after the COVID-19 disruption.
"The pandemic validated cloud's value proposition," said Sid Nag, research VP at Gartner. "The ability to use on-demand, scalable cloud models to achieve cost efficiency and business continuity is providing the impetus for organizations to rapidly accelerate their digital business transformation plans. The increased use of public cloud services has reinforced cloud adoption to be the 'new normal,' now more than ever."
This table shows the numbers:
Worldwide Public Cloud Services End-User Spending Forecast (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
|
2019
|
2020
|
2021
|
2022
|
Cloud Business Process Services (BPaaS)
|
45,212
|
44,741
|
47,521
|
50,336
|
Cloud Application Infrastructure Services (PaaS)
|
37,512
|
43,823
|
55,486
|
68,964
|
Cloud Application Services (SaaS)
|
102,064
|
101,480
|
117,773
|
138,261
|
Cloud Management and Security Services
|
12,836
|
14,880
|
17,001
|
19,934
|
Cloud System Infrastructure Services (IaaS)
|
44,457
|
51,421
|
65,264
|
82,225
|
Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
|
616
|
1,204
|
1,945
|
2,542
|
Total Market
|
242,696
|
257,549
|
304,990
|
362,263
|
BPaaS = business process as a service; IaaS = infrastructure as a service; PaaS = platform as a service; SaaS = software as a service
Note: Totals may not add up due to rounding.
Source: Gartner (November 2020)
According to Nag, the pandemic made organizations focus on three priorities:
- Preserve cash and optimize IT costs
- Support and secure a remote workforce
- Ensure resiliency
"Investing in cloud became a convenient means to address all three of these needs," he said.
Nag's comments came in a news release promoting the firm's for-pay report, "Forecast: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2018-2024, 3Q20 Update."
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.