Public Cloud Means Big Revenues for IT Firms

For anyone who's made contact with just about anything with “as-a-service” in the name, or even just done something as simple as store some files online and pass such files around, it's become increasingly clear just how valuable the public cloud is to everyday operations. But the public cloud isn't just a valuable tool for users, it's also valuable for those who provide such services. A new report from Synergy Research Group suggests that the public cloud is now generating over $20 billion quarterly for its providers, and that kind of revenue makes this a field to watch.

That $20-plus billion, though, is split over several firms. The actual amount is closer to $22 billion, and $10 billion of it goes to the companies that supply public cloud operators. Companies offering hardware and software options, as well as data center systems, are pulling in almost half of that figure, and the other, slightly less even half—about $12 billion—is going to those who sell the various service platforms ranging from infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) to the old, familiar software-as-a-service (SaaS).

Certain companies, naturally, are doing better than others in this field, and the biggest chunk of revenues on the supply side are currently held by five major names: Cisco, Dell, Equinix, HP and IBM. Meanwhile, the cloud services side is currently dominated by a similar five names: AWS, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and once again, IBM.

These firms are firing into a market that's rich with targets; the reports suggest that 24 percent of all data center infrastructure spending is going into hardware and software with a public cloud focus, and public cloud operators—along with the accompanying digital content firms—represent almost half (47 percent) of the data center collocation market. Just to top it off, the growth figures are staggering. Revenues for IaaS/PaaS have grown 49 percent over the last year, and even SaaS has seen 29 percent growth. The entire IT market itself only saw just under 5 percent growth in that same period, showing that this is a field rife with gains.

What this essentially spells out is the rapid expansion of not just the public cloud, but the various components of that cloud. Businesses and even regular people are seeing the value in turning to such tools, as fields like virtualization add a little extra jolt to the proceedings. The flexibility the public cloud offers, the ability to access material from just about anywhere and the ability to put many new exciting software offerings to work without having to build out infrastructure in the office accordingly makes these valuable, and we're seeing that value come back just in the sheer amount of revenue these fields are producing.

We're likely to see a lot more change in this field to come. While the public cloud may not continue to produce these kinds of revenue figures forever, it's a safe bet that, for the next couple of years or so anyway, the public cloud will mean big revenue for those participating therein.

Edited by Dominick Sorrentino