Gartner: Cloud services market to reach $266.4b in 2020

The global public cloud services market is set to reach $266.4 billion, representing a growth of 17%, up from $227.8 billion in 2019.

According to new figures from analyst firm Gartner, cloud adoption has become mainstream, and the expectations of the outcomes associated with cloud investments are therefore higher.

"Adoption of next-generation solutions are almost always 'cloud-enhanced' solutions, meaning they build on the strengths of a cloud platform to deliver digital business capabilities," explains Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner.

 Software as a service (SaaS) will remain the largest market segment, which is forecast to grow to $116 billion next year due to the scalability of subscription-based software.

The second-largest market segment is cloud system infrastructure services, or infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which will reach $50 billion in 2020. IaaS is forecast to grow 24% year over year, which is the highest growth rate across all market segments. This growth is attributed to the demands of modern applications and workloads, which require infrastructure that traditional data centers cannot meet, says Gartner.

According to Gartner, various forms of cloud computing are among the top three areas where most global CIOs will increase their investment next year.

"As organisations increase their reliance on cloud technologies, IT teams are rushing to embrace cloud-built applications and relocate existing digital assets," says Nag.

"Building, implementing and maturing cloud strategies will continue to be a top priority for years to come," he says.

 Nag says the cloud managed service landscape is becoming increasingly sophisticated and competitive.

"In fact, by 2022, up to 60% of organisations will use an external service provider's cloud managed service offering, which is double the percentage of organisations from 2018," he explains.

"Cloud-native capabilities, application services, multicloud and hybrid cloud comprise a diverse cloud ecosystem that will be important differentiators for technology product managers. Demand for strategic cloud service outcomes signals an organisational shift toward digital business outcomes.

In Australia, organisations are forecast to spend more than A$8.1 billion on public cloud services in 2020, growing to almost $11 billion in 2022. Although software as a service (SaaS) represented by far the largest category of spending, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) will be the fastest growing segment next year, with forecast growth of 23.3 percent.