Cloud set for boom years as companies catch on

Companies are now firmly latching onto the cloud, according to a Gartner report that has predicted global cloud services revenue will hit $68.3 billion (46.09 billion) this year.

This would represent a 16.6 per cent rise from the 2009 revenue of $58.6 billion (39.54 billion) and Gartner said that the figure will grow to $148.8 billion (100.4 billion).

Over the next five years, Gartner expects enterprises to spend $112 billion (75.6 billion) cumulatively on software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service combined.

"We are seeing an acceleration of adoption of cloud computing and cloud services among enterprises and an explosion of supply-side activity as technology providers maneuver to exploit the growing commercial opportunity," said Ben Pring, research vice president at Gartner, in a statement.

He said that the central ideas behind cloud computing are now being recognised by companies on a greater scale. Pring put this partly down to macroeconomic reasons, as cloud computing offers functionality at less cost, bringing with it greater agility.

"IT managers are thinking strategically about cloud service deployments; more-progressive enterprises are thinking through what their IT operations will look like in a world of increasing cloud service leverage. This was highly unusual a year ago," Pring added.

By 2014, the analyst firm expects the UK to account for 29 per cent of the cloud services market, while the US will have a 50 per cent share.

Gartner also noted that the largest early adopters of the cloud are the financial services and manufacturing sectors.

There are still concerns surrounding cloud computing, however, particularly when it comes to management and governance.