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        Gartner Says Cloud Spending On the Rise
        
        
        
			- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- September 23, 2010
Cloud computing services accounted for 12.5 percent of  overall IT budgets, according to a research report released this week by  Gartner. 
The report found that 39 percent of those surveyed allocated  portions of their IT budgets for cloud computing, while 44 percent of those  surveyed said they procured services from outside providers. Of those, 46  percent said they will increase that spending in the next budget year by an  average of 32 percent.
Gartner said it surveyed more than 1,500 IT professionals  throughout 40 countries between April and July of this year. Another key  finding of the report revealed that one-third of spending came from last year's  budget, another third was new spending, and 14 percent was diverted from a  different budget category.
"Overall, these are healthy investment trends for cloud  computing," said Gartner analyst Bob Igou, in a statement. "This is  yet another trend that indicates a shift in spending from traditional IT assets  such as the data center assets and a move toward assets that are accessed in  the cloud." 
Igou, who authored the study, pointed out that 24.1 percent  of budgets covered data center systems and business applications, 19.7 percent  for PC and related gear, 13.7 percent for telecom costs and 30 percent for IT  personnel. 
For the next budget year, the report found 40 percent will  increase spending on development of cloud-based applications and solutions,  while 56 percent will spend the same amount. Forty three percent said they will  increase spending on implementation of cloud computing for internal and/or  restricted and 32 percent will increase spending on such environments for  external and/or public use.
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
            
        
        
                
                    About the Author
                    
                
                    
                    Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.