Digital Lifescapes

The senior executive's quest for meaningful and substantive digital business transformation in the Asia-Pacific region has gained new momentum in 2022. Expectations for digital business model growth are fueling the demand for innovation. Business leaders are considering the next advancement of cloud computing adoption in terms of technology and services to reap benefits beyond cost reduction and IT team productivity, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Multi-Cloud Market Development "With the multi-cloud environment becoming more manageable, organizations are loving the openness towards having workload portability and getting the best out of their cloud strategy without worrying about challenges of complexities, vendor lock-in, data privacy or governance," said Shahnawas Latiff, research manager at IDC . Organizations in the Asia-Pacific region are already experiencing a transformation from a technology and services implementation...

Cloud computing solutions continue to move closer to the edge of networks across the globe, where compute and storage are located near the source of the data. Worldwide spending on edge computing is forecast at $176 billion in 2022 -- that's an increase of 14.8 percent over 2021. Enterprise and service provider spending on hardware, software, and services for edge solutions is forecast to sustain this pace of growth through 2025 when spending will reach nearly $274 billion, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC defines edge as the technology-related actions that are performed outside of the centralized data center, where edge computing is the intermediary between the connected endpoints and the core IT environment. Characteristically, the edge is distributed, software-defined, and flexible. Edge Computing Market Development "Edge computing continues to gain momentum as digital-first organizations seek to innovate outside of...

As more enterprise CIOs and CTOs transition to the cloud, the opportunities for managed service providers (MSPs) expanded. At the same time, the managed cloud services market has become more complex as organizations increasingly look to their service providers for superior solutions and business technology leadership. A worldwide survey by International Data Corporation (IDC) examined the service and business requirements that MSPs and their ecosystem partners need to optimize their growth opportunities and drive competitive advantage in the market for managed cloud services. Managed Cloud Services Market Development Due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders utilize public cloud capabilities (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), innovative technologies and processes (IoT, edge computing, blockchain), and multi-cloud management platforms for their growth strategies and to ensure business resiliency. While very few organizations have shifted all of their IT applications and infrastructure to the cloud...

The original concept of 'Hybrid Cloud' service deployment now seems outdated. In practice, few enterprise IT organizations have embraced private cloud models. And, even fewer will modernize their legacy non-cloud IT applications or the systems where they reside in the corporate data center. That said, new IT infrastructure investment continues to shift as more leaders execute their digital transformation plans. Many enterprise CIOs and CTOs prefer to develop customer-facing applications within public cloud environments, and then connect those Web services to apps and data that reside on legacy systems within their on-premises data center. The vendor impact is apparent. Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud environments -- including public and private cloud -- increased 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2020 (1Q20) while investments in traditional, non-cloud, infrastructure declined 16.3 percent ...

Global demand for enterprise data center server and storage infrastructure tends to fluctuate. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide converged systems market revenue increased 3.5 percent year-over-year to $3.75 billion during the third quarter of 2019 (3Q19). "The converged systems market continues to grow despite a challenging overall data center infrastructure environment," said Sebastian Lagana, research manager at IDC . Converged Systems Market Development In particular, hyperconverged solutions remain in demand as vendors position the solutions as an ideal framework for hybrid, multi-cloud environments due to their software-defined nature and ease of integration into premises-agnostic environments. The IDC converged systems market view offers three segments: certified reference systems & integrated infrastructure, integrated platforms, and hyperconverged systems. The certified reference systems & int...

The pace of change from a traditional capital-intensive IT infrastructure model to a more flexible hybrid multi-cloud services model is influencing enterprise spending trends across the globe. Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.79 trillion in 2019 -- that's an increase of just 1.1 percent from 2018, according to the latest global market study by Gartner. IT Infrastructure Market Development "Currency headwinds fueled by the strengthening U.S. dollar have caused us to revise our 2019 IT spending forecast down from the previous quarter," said John-David Lovelock, vice president at Gartner . "Through the remainder of 2019, the U.S. dollar is expected to trend stronger, while enduring tremendous volatility due to uncertain economic and political environments and trade wars." In 2019, technology product managers will have to get more strategic with their portfolio mix by balancing products and services that will post growth in 2019 with those large...

Leading hyperscale cloud service providers continue to disrupt the traditional IT infrastructure vendor landscape, as more enterprise CIOs and CTOs expand their adoption of multi-cloud strategies that marginalize the remaining applications for on-premises data centers. Legacy IT vendors that were reluctant to evolve their business model will now seek niche cloud market segments where they can differentiate their offerings. There's no viable growth path that's based upon hardware or software market status-quo assumptions. However, distinctive professional services are still a source of new opportunities. Cloud Computing Market Development The worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow 17.5 percent in 2019 to total $214.3 billion -- that's up from $182.4 billion in 2018, according to the latest global market study by Gartner. The fastest-growing market segment will be cloud system infrastructure services, or infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which i...

Hyperscale cloud service providers continue to leverage their low-cost advantage to drive growth. According to the latest worldwide market study by Canalys, Google Cloud was the fastest-growing cloud infrastructure vendor last year -- up more than 90 percent year-on-year -- increasing its share of the total market from 6 percent in 2017 to 8 percent in 2018. The top four hyperscale cloud service providers accounted for 61 percent of the total market in 2018. Amazon Web Services (AWS) remained the leader on 32 percent, followed by Microsoft Azure with 17 percent, Google Cloud in third place with 8 percent and Alibaba Cloud with 4 percent. Hyperscale Cloud Market Development Canalys reports that hyperscale cloud infrastructure services are in a period of sustained growth, with spending up 46 percent in 2018 to more than $80 billion. Expenditure is also forecast to surpass $143 billion in 2020. More businesses are deploying a hybrid multi-cloud strategy, integrating multiple provi...

As more enterprise CIOs and CTOs embrace hybrid multi-cloud deployment strategies, business technology vendors and cloud service providers must continue to evolve their go-to-market approach -- in recognition of the prevailing IT infrastructure investment trends. Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products for cloud environments, including public and private cloud, grew 47.2 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2018 (3Q18), reaching $16.8 billion, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Cloud IT Infrastructure Market Development IDC also raised its forecast for total spending (vendor revenue plus channel mark-up) on cloud IT infrastructure in 2018 to $65.2 billion, with year-over-year growth of 37.2 percent. Quarterly spending on public cloud IT infrastructure has more than doubled in the past two years reaching $12.1 billion in 3Q18 and growing 56.1 percent year-over-year, while spending on private cloud inf...

According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products for cloud IT -- including public and private cloud -- grew 48.4 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2018 (2Q18), reaching $15.4 billion. IDC also raised its forecast for total spending (vendor recognized revenue plus channel revenue) on cloud IT infrastructure in 2018 to $62.2 billion with year-over-year growth of 31.1 percent. Cloud Infrastructure Market Development Quarterly spending on public cloud IT infrastructure has more than doubled in the past three years to $10.9 billion in 2Q18 -- growing 58.9 percent year-over-year. By end of the year, public cloud will account for the majority, 68.2 percent, of the expected annual cloud IT infrastructure spending, growing at an annual rate of 36.9 percent. In 2Q18, spending on private cloud infrastructure reached $4.6 billion, an annual increase of 28.2 percent. IDC estimates tha...

Cloud service adoption continues to grow, as traditional IT vendors react to market demand. Total spending on IT infrastructure products for deployment in cloud environments is forecast to reach $52.3 billion in 2018 -- that's year-over-year growth of 10.9 percent, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Public cloud data centers will account for a majority of this spending, 65.9 percent, growing at the fastest annual rate of 11.3 percent. Off-premises private cloud environments will represent 13 percent of cloud IT infrastructure spending, growing at 12 percent year over year. On-premises private clouds will account for 61.7 percent of spending on private cloud IT infrastructure and will grow 9.1 percent year-over-year in 2018. Cloud IT Infrastructure Market Development "Growing expansion of digital transformation initiatives enables further adoption of cloud-based solutions around the globe. This will result in a contin...

CIOs and CTOs are developing comprehensive Hybrid IT infrastructure models, in response to growing demand from CFOs and line of business leaders that request access to applications hosted via both on-premises private cloud and off-premises public cloud offerings. That's why savvy technology leaders must therefore align with the most qualified vendors and service providers that enable them to manage and support these complex multi-cloud scenarios. Furthermore, the chosen provider must demonstrate vertical industry knowledge and prior experience. A major shift is taking place in how enterprises select their financial management applications, with a migration to cloud applications happening faster than expected, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Multi-Cloud Service Market Development A recent Gartner survey of senior finance executives found that by 2020, 36 percent of enterprises will use the cloud to support more than half of their transactional syst...

More CIOs and CTOs are choosing to architect and deploy hybrid multi-cloud computing environments in 2017. The trend is being driven by growing demand to support digital transformation projects that are led by the C-suite. Newly released results from the CloudView Survey 2017 reveal the top drivers of cloud adoption -- include improving agility and security, as well as standardizing IT infrastructure. Cloud Computing Market Development As multi-cloud environments and hybrid cloud become more prevalent, the survey revealed that 87 percent of cloud users have adopted some capabilities for a hybrid cloud strategy -- that's an increase of 17 percent compared to 2016, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). "Beyond adoption and maturity, a series of questions on 'why are' or 'why aren't' respondents moving more workloads to the cloud makes up a key part of the study," said Benjamin McGrath, senior research analy...

High growth continues within the public cloud sector. CIOs report that growth in their hosting and cloud computing services spending will outpace growth in their overall IT spending, according to the latest worldwide market study by by 451 Research. This growth trend applies across almost every vertical market and company size category, but is most pronounced among very large businesses, which expect an average of 33.3 percent growth in hosting and cloud services spending this year. Among survey respondents, 88 percent will increase their hosting or cloud budgets in 2017 vs. 2016 -- that's compared to 70 percent that expect to increase total IT budgets year-over-year. In contrast, just 9.5 percent expect a decrease in hosting or cloud spending -- that's compared to 22.3 percent that expect a decrease in their total IT spending. Public Cloud Service Market Development "We see the pace of investment in hosting and cloud services exceeding investment in IT overall, me...

More executives will seek comprehensive vendor guidance on their digital transformation plans. According to latest market study by 451 Research, 80 percent of surveyed organizations report that their IT environments will change in order to meet forward-looking business requirements over the next five years. That includes creating plans to migrate current enterprise workloads to cloud computing platforms, and developing expertise to ensure that cloud service spending continues on an upward trajectory. The survey found that only 22 percent of enterprises have thus far adopted a cloud-first approach, with public cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings identified as the fastest-growing deployment model. Cloud Service Delivery Market Development With organizations now choosing IaaS for their core business applications, qualified service provider selection is a key component of digital transformation project assessment. However, survey respondents indicate concern about so...

Cloud computing application demand is growing, but challenges remain. According to the latest market study by Gartner, the worldwide public cloud computing market is projected to grow 17.2 percent in 2016 to reach $208.6 billion -- that's up from $178 billion in 2015. The highest growth will come from cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS), which are projected to grow 42.8 percent in 2016. Cloud application services (SaaS), one of the largest segments in the global cloud services market, is forecast to grow 21.7 percent during 2016 to reach $38.9 billion. Growth of public cloud is partly because organizations are saving 14 percent of their IT budgets as an outcome of public cloud adoption. However, the typical CIO aspiration for using cloud services outpaces actual adoption. Ongoing Market Development Challenges Gartner believes that while many organizations have assessed the need for cloud services, they resist the change. In fact, a large number of organizations stil...