IDC forecasts huge growth for cloud computing

IDC sees a bright future for cloud technology

IDC has issued its second forecast for cloud services, and estimates that the technology will grow by an average of 26 per cent over the next four years.

The analyst forecasts showed that, while the total amount of spending on cloud computing is relatively small, it is going through a very strong growth curve and will account for 10 per cent of IT revenue in 2013, up from five per cent today.

"This 'percentage of total revenue' perspective is a very dangerous one because it's a rear-view mirror view: it misses the impact that cloud services will have on net new growth in the IT market," said IDC chief analyst Frank Gens in a blog post.

"IT cloud services adoption is currently in the 'crossing the chasm' stage. This revenue and growth data is very much in sync with this view."

As a result Gens warned that providers that do not get cloud services running very quickly will miss out on one of the fastest growing areas of IT.

The IDC forecast covers the following key cloud computing areas: application software; application development and deployment software; systems infrastructure software; and server and disk storage capacity.

Worldwide cloud IT services are currently worth $17.2bn (£10.7bn), according to IDC, but will rise to $44.2bn (£27.7bn) by 2013. Cloud storage will be the fastest growing area of services. This is a slight reduction on IDC's earlier forecast, reflecting the effects of the recession.