The term “the cloud” has been around for a few years and most people have had some interaction with the cloud whether they know it or not. So much software and services are based in cloud servers that using the term is no longer necessary. But since the cloud requires a lot of computer power, memory and storage, there are only a few companies with the resources to provide those services.
Because the cloud moves data access and manipulation off the local computer or server, it is used for a variety of activities, often described in an acronym containing “aaS’ as in SaaS (Software as a Service) or IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). And, according to IDC (Intl. Data Corp.) the combined revenue of the top five public cloud service providers (Oracle Corp., Amazon Web Services Inc., Salesforce.com, Inc., Google LLC, Microsoft Corp.) capturing more than one third of the worldwide total, growing 35% from 2018-2019.
The worldwide public cloud services market, including Infrastructure as a Service, (PaaS Platform as a Service), and Software as a Service, grew 26% year over year in 2019 with revenues totaling $233.4 billion, according to IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker. The report shows that the cloud is expanding far beyond niche e-commerce and online ad-sponsored searches. It underpins all the digital activities that individuals and enterprises depend upon as we navigate and move beyond COVID-19.
The public cloud services market has more than doubled since 2016. During this same period, the combined spending on IaaS and PaaS has nearly tripled. This highlights the increasing reliance on cloud infrastructure and platforms for application deployment for enterprise IT internal applications as well as SaaS and digital application delivery. IDC expects spending on IaaS and PaaS to continue growing at a higher rate than the overall cloud market over the next several years as resilience, flexibility, and agility guide IT platform decisions.
Cost optimization and business resilience have, indeed, emerged as top drivers of IT investment decisions and IaaS offerings are designed to enable both. The COVID-19 disruption accelerated cloud adoption with both traditional enterprise IT organizations and digital service providers increasing use of IaaS for their technology platforms.
SaaS applications remains the largest segment of public cloud spending with revenues of more than $122 billion in 2019. Although growth has slowed somewhat in recent years, the current crisis serves as an accelerator for SaaS adoption across primary and functional markets to address the exponential growth of remote workers.
Want to tweet about this article? Use hashtags #construction #IoT #artificialintelligence #5G #cloud #machinelearning #bigdata #digitaltransformation #cybersecurity #blockchain #sustainability #futureofwork #infrastructure #COVID19 #SaaS