Cloud to hammer IT departments sizes?

Cloud software is being touted as the solution for reducing the size of internal IT departments and simplifying the delivery of IT services.

A report from Gartner says that worldwide spending on cloud technologies will grow 16.6 per cent in 2010 for a total outlay of $68.3 billion. By 2014, the use of software, platform and infrastructure as a service is predicted to hit $148.8 billion.

Ben Pring, research vice president at Gartner, explains why organisations see the delivery of IT through the cloud as more than a cost cutting measure.  “The challenges inherent in managing technology based on the principles of previous eras — complex, custom, expensive solutions managed by large in-house IT teams — have become greater, and the benefits of cloud computing in addressing these challenges have matured to become more appropriate and attractive to all types of enterprises.”

The reason for the rapid uptake in cloud services is that businesses have moved from thinking about the potential of cloud to considering its long-term application. “The scale of application deployments is growing; multi-thousand-seat deals are increasingly common.  IT managers are thinking strategically about cloud service deployments; more-progressive enterprises are thinking through what their IT operations will look like in a world of increasing cloud service leverage.  This was highly unusual a year ago,” says Pring.