Cloudy Forecast: Public Cloud Services Market

While enterprises are moving toward multiple cloud providers and hybrid cloud environments, there are still legs left in the public services cloud market.

"Growth of public cloud is supported by the fact that organizations are saving 14% of their budgets as an outcome of public cloud adoption, according to Gartner's 2015 cloud adoption survey," said Sid Nag research director at Gartner in a recent report. "However, the aspiration for using cloud services outpaces actual adoption. There's no question there is great appetite within organizations to use cloud services, but there are still challenges for organizations as they make the move to the cloud. Even with the high rate of predicted growth, a large number of organizations still have no current plans to use cloud services."

Gartner's report cited IT modernization as the biggest driver of public cloud adoption, followed by cost savings, innovation and agility. Gartner Inc. said the emphasis on IT modernization was a sign of a more sophisticated and strategic use of public cloud services. The more modern IT environment could serve as a foundation for future applications and digital transformations.

While networks are being transformed with new services and technologies, security is typically cited as a concern almost across the board, which is also the case for public cloud adoption, according to Gartner.

"Gartner's position on cloud security has been clear -- public cloud services offered by the leading cloud providers are secure. The real security challenge is using public cloud services in a secure manner," said Ed Anderson, research vice president at Gartner. "More education is needed to help organizations overcome the hype associated with security concerns. This should be a key area of focus for providers in working with their clients to unlock the benefits of public cloud services."

— Mike Robuck, Editor, Telco Transformation