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I was delighted to see that cloud computing received a lot of positive online press this week. One of the reasons for this was a report on the subject by technology website EMC2. The report suggested that over the next few years cloud computing would be one of the driving factors in the European economic recovery.
Businesses investing in cloud computing infrastructure such as hosted email or CRM solutions are spending money now that will ultimately save them even more money in the future. The report suggested that the UK alone could save up to 30 billion Euros every year through the use of cloud computing solutions and by 2015 the whole of Europe could be making savings amounting to a total of 150 billion Euros per year.
More widespread investment in cloud computing can therefore only be seen as a positive measure in driving the economy forward over the coming years. Separate figures released by Pike Research this week estimate that global cloud computing revenue is likely grow at a rate of 28.8% per year between now and 2015, resulting in a net market worth of $210.3 billion (£133.7 billion), up from the $46 billion that the market was valued at last year.
This growth is expected to come as result of large investments in data centre technology. Cloud computing is much less expensive than traditional data centres and also allows businesses to make significant reductions to their energy consumption and carbon emissions. Pike Research conclude that internal data centres will be almost obsolete by 2020 and all of this work will be outsourced to the cloud.
There was also more good news for cloud advocates from internet security expert Professor John Walker, a member of the ISACA security group. The recent denial of service attacks related to Wikileaks severely affecting (amongst others) Mastercard, Visa and Paypal had far less effect on cloud based sites, which were able to keep operating despite the adverse conditions.
Disclosure: The author Stefan Töpfer is CEO of WinWeb.com - a leading cloud based small business infrastructure provider (small business software, e-Commerce solutions & business process outsourcing) - the views and opinions expressed are his and are based on over three decades of personal experience as a serial entrepreneur, #1 small business blogger, mentor and angel investor in the SME/SMB sector.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
