This article is more than 1 year old

Public cloud spend will rise by $100 BEEELION in five years

SaaS will be half the business software market by 2020 says IDC

Spending on cloud computing will more than double by 2020, say abacus-shufflers IDC.

The firm's new Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide says that in 2016 we'll all spend US$96.5bn on software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service (SaaS, IaaS and PaaS). By 2020 that figure will reach $195bn, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.4 per cent between 2015 and 2020.

That's good news if you're selling cloud but perhaps a little confronting if you sell, prefer or hold shares in companies that offer on-premises technology.

Enterprise kit-makers should be especially uncomfortable, unless they can start to supply cloud operators.

Business software vendors are also going to have to change their spots, as IDC's senior research analyst for SaaS and Business Models, Benjamin McGrath, says “By 2020, about half of all new business software purchases will be of service-enabled software, and cloud software will constitute more than a quarter of all software sold."

"Cloud software will significantly outpace traditional software product delivery over the next five years, growing nearly three times faster than the software market as a whole and becoming the significant growth driver to all functional software markets.”

IT departments will also need to change, because much of the growth will come from folks on different floors of the building.

Strap in: there's a wild ride coming. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like