News

IDC: Public Cloud Spending To Reach $73 Billion by 2015

IT spending on public cloud services will grow at an impressive compound annual rate of 27.6 percent over the next four years, according to a recent report by IDC.

By 2015, IDC forecasts that global spending on public cloud services will total $72.9 billion, dwarfing 2010's spending total of $21.5 billion. Roughly 46 percent of all spending in new growth areas will be in five cloud-related markets: applications, app development and deployment, basic storage, servers, and systems infrastructure software.

IDC is basing its predictions on the increasing enterprise adoption of smartphones, tablets and social networking sites like Facebook.

"Cloud services are interconnected with and accelerated by other disruptive technologies, including mobile devices, wireless networks, big data analytics, and social networking," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC, in a released statement. "Together, these technologies are merging into the industry's third major platform for long-term growth. As during the mainframe and PC eras, the new platform promises to radically expand the users and uses of information technology, leading to a wide and entirely new variety of intelligent industry solutions." 

The United States, already the highest-spending region in the public cloud market, will account for 50 percent of all revenue by 2015. However, the percentage of growth in non-U.S. territories will grow at a faster rate as cloud adoption becomes more prevalent.

The Software as a Service (SaaS) market is projected by IDC to be the biggest cloud segment winner, accruing roughly a third of the growth by 2015. IDC based this prediction on the success of SaaS providers in improving their infrastructures to cater to larger numbers of clients.

Although the study accounts for IT spending in the public cloud, it does not include figures from private cloud deployments.

"While private clouds provide the customer with the ability to specify access limitations and the level of resource dedication beyond what is currently available in public cloud offerings, IDC's expectation is that public clouds will mature and eventually incorporate many of the capabilities (particularly security and availability) that make private clouds a more attractive option today," IDC commented in a press release.

About the Author

Chris Paoli (@ChrisPaoli5) is the associate editor for Converge360.

Featured

  • Report: Cost, Sustainability Drive DaaS Adoption Beyond Remote Work

    Gartner's 2025 Magic Quadrant for Desktop as a Service reveals that while secure remote access remains a key driver of DaaS adoption, a growing number of deployments now focus on broader efficiency goals.

  • Windows 365 Reserve, Microsoft's Cloud PC Rental Service, Hits Preview

    Microsoft has launched a limited public preview of its new "Windows 365 Reserve" service, which lets organizations rent cloud PC instances in the event their Windows devices are stolen, lost or damaged.

  • Hands-On AI Skills Now Outshine Certs in Salary Stakes

    For AI-related roles, employers are prioritizing verifiable, hands-on abilities over framed certificates -- and they're paying a premium for it.

  • Roadblocks in Enterprise AI: Data and Skills Shortfalls Could Cost Millions

    Businesses risk losing up to $87 million a year if they fail to catch up with AI innovation, according to the Couchbase FY 2026 CIO AI Survey released this month.