Worldwide cloud computing revenue will more than double by 2021 to $554 billion, according to a new report by research firm IDC.
IDC’s first-ever report sizing up the “whole cloud” measured public, private and hybrid clouds, plus software and hardware infrastructure for building clouds, along with managed cloud services and other related professional services.
The research firm concluded that the shift in the IT world to cloud services is a “mass movement” enterprises will have to adopt.
“The most obvious takeaway from this forecast is that the shift to the cloud consumption model – in all its forms – is a mass movement, and will continue to be such over the forecast period,” said Fran Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC. “Equally important, though, is the steady drumbeat of tech innovation that is coming from the major public cloud suppliers, making it virtually impossible for enterprises and developers seeking advantage through IT not to embrace the public cloud.”
Most of the revenue generated, according to IDC’s report, will come from the public cloud, which makes up less than half of all cloud-related spending today at 41 percent.
By 2021, that figure will increase to 48 percent. When spending on hardware and software that enables public cloud services, and managed and professional services around the cloud are included, these total jumps to as high as 68 percent, according to IDC.
Meanwhile, the total spending on managed cloud services and professional services around cloud adoption accounted for 31 percent of all revenue generated in 2016, a percentage that will remain steady through 2021.
The research firm also cloud providers to account for 76 percent of cloud-related infrastructure hardware and software spending.
