Cloud Tech News

The combination of public and private cloud is really starting to gain traction in 2013. But why? The most important reason for adopting hybrid clouds, according to 38% of respondents, was that cloud apps were deployed faster. Delivering better value (21%), and being able to meet requirements more easily (10%) were the next most popular suggestions.

The platform as a service (PaaS) market is expected to reach $6.45bn by 2016 and grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 50%, with application infrastructure and middleware PaaS expected to grow the fastest. That’s the big takeaway from analysts TechNavio, having published a report entitled Global Platform as a Service Market 2012-2016.

Cloud computing is one of the biggest trends facing enterprise IT departments today, according to a quarter of respondents in the latest NaviSite survey. Slashed budgets was the top trend according to 31% of those surveyed, with data explosion (25%) rounding off the top three.

Last year, four out of every 10 CRM systems sold were SaaS-based, and the trend is accelerating. In the recent Gartner report Market Share Analysis: Customer Relationship Software, Worldwide, 2012 published April 18 2013 the authors provide insights into why the worldwide CRM market experienced 12% growth in 2012, three times the average of all enterprise software categories.

Analyst houses IDC and Gartner are of the same mind: the age of the Digital Enterprise is upon us. As these elements of cloud, social, mobile and information come together, it does look as though this year will witness a radical change in the way we work and do business, both individually and collectively. So, as businesses, we must ask ourselves whether we can survive if we are not digital.

Albert Einstein once said that the only source of knowledge is experience. And in terms of cloud computing, the latest report from RightScale, subtitled “How cloud maturity unlocks cloud value” emphasises that to a tee. The key theme running through the research was that the more time you spend on cloud, the more revenue you'll get out of it in the long run.

Transforming time into dollars matters far more to many CEOs I've spoken with versus what platform their applications are running on. What matters most is getting all they can out of every hour their business is operating. They are all focused on getting beyond the constraints that held their growth back in the past - everyone wants a growth accelerator today.

The International Data Center (IDC) has released a report which reveals that Microsoft remains the largest software vendor globally through 2012 revenues and overall market share. Figures from the Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker put the Washington-based tech giant at a 17.1% market share, lower than its 2011 figure of 17.4% but still nearly twice as far ahead as its nearest competitors, IBM and Oracle.