New data from research firm IDC shows why the “cloud” is such a hot topic at Triangle tech companies, from startups to IBM, Lenovo, EMC, NetApp, Cisco, Red Hat and more …

International Data Corporation in a new forecast says spending on cloud-computing infrastructure will swell 15.5 percent this year to $37.1 billion

And IDC sees no slowdown as more companies embrace private, public and hybrid cloud infrastructure to support growing data and analysis of that data.

However, traditional IT spending will decline 4.4 percent this year, IDC warns, as the shift to cloud infrastructure continues to pick up steam.

“Spending on private cloud IT infrastructure will grow by 10.3% year over year to $13.8 billion with more than 60% of this amount contributed by on-premises private cloud environments,” IDC says.

“Spending on public cloud IT infrastructure will increase by 18.8% in 2016 to $23.3 billion.”

IDC projects that growth will continue across all geographic regions.

The firm says it also “expects that spending on IT infrastructure for cloud environments will grow at a 13.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to $59.5 billion in 2020.”

By that time, cloud will make up nearly half of all IT infrastructure spending, up from some 34 percent today.

Noted Natalya Yezhkova, research director, Storage Systems, at IDC: “Overall, we will continue to see steady growth in demand for public cloud services and, as a result, underlying spending on IT infrastructure by CSPs. The economic and financial volatility we see in some regions will push demand further as increasing sophistication of public cloud offerings allows organizations to fulfill their needs across a growing variety of IT domains while OPEX-oriented pricing models provide some relief to tightening IT budgets.”

In a report last week, IDC noted that Lenovo, IBM and NetApp were losing market share in IT spending.

Read more at:

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41568116