Whether in Australia, APAC or the world at large, IT is growing quickly and showing no sign of slowing. Businesses and governments alike continue to adopt cloud services, take advantage of new mobile and ultra portable devices and introduce new modes of effective communication.
One of the technologies showing strong growth is that of public cloud services. In just a short space of time, leading research organisations expect this market to expand significantly.
Understanding the market
Public cloud services are those provided in a virtualised environment using shared physical resources (servers). From there, subscribers can access these services over a public network. It’s often an affordable and effective way of gaining access to applications that would often be too costly for smaller organisations.
What’s more, there’s the powerful scalability of being able to sign up for new services, often have access within a matter of hours and the reliability of having services operated by a provider.
Public cloud services set to expand
According to a recent release from Gartner, the worldwide public cloud services market could grow to reach US$204 billion this year. This represents growth of 16.5 per cent from last year, when the market stood at $175 billion. Gartner notes that cloud infrastructure services will see the highest growth rate, at 38.4 per cent.
Research Director Sid Nag noted that the market for these types of cloud services demonstrates high rates of growth in all markets. Interestingly, he explained Gartner believes this could continue through to 2017 as organisations consider the benefits of moving away from traditional legacy IT.
It’s not just Gartner predicting strong growth in the public cloud space, however, as the International Data Corporation (IDC) also believes expansion is set for this year.
Interestingly, the organisation notes that worldwide spending could double by 2019, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.4 per cent. This would mean a growth rate more than six times that of IT spending overall.
IDC Program Director Eileen Smith explained that cloud services are set to remain an essential foundation in IT, as part of the so-called “3rd Platform of Innovation and growth”.
“Industry-specific applications will be a driving force as businesses look for solutions that can be easily configured to their unique business and vertical requirements,” she said.
“With the huge increase in the number and diversity of services available in the market, organisations across the industries will shift steadily toward cloud-first strategies to enable digital transformation.”
For those in the IT space, especially contractors, it’s going to be important to start thinking about public growth impacts them.
What does this mean for IT contractors?
Such significant growth of any new IT service means one thing for IT contractors: numerous potential employment options. As businesses start to consider the implementation of new technologies, they’ll likely turn to skilled contractors to provide guidance throughout the adoption process. In many cases, such an approach can prove far more cost effective than bringing on employees for the job.
The team here at Oncore can ensure IT contractors manage their contracts and finances effectively, with superannuation, insurance, salary packaging, and employment structure advice.
If you’re an IT contractor seeking more effective contractor management, or perhaps a business looking to bring on skilled IT contractors in the next year, reach out to Oncore Services to learn more about the range of solutions available.