Dive Brief:
- The U.S. cloud economy has tripled over the last 15 years, and in 2017 contributed $214 billion to GDP and supported 2.15 million jobs, according to an Internet Association report released this week. It is no longer "a technology of the future; it is a very real and present boon to internet and economic systems today."
- Five years prior, cloud technology is estimated to have contributed $165 billion to GDPR and supported 1.7 million jobs. But putting an exact size on the cloud economy is difficult, and the report noted that the study could be underestimating the sector's impact. Recategorizing cloud services as investment instead of operating expenses could more accurately reflect the cloud's economic contribution.
- The lag in transition to the cloud indicates the market still has considerable maturation and growth ahead. Expansion in the cloud economy has come at the cost of other technology segments, with disruption especially poignant in legacy software systems and data centers.
Dive Insight:
The Internet Association's report measures through 2017, and growth in the cloud economy continued to shoot up from there.
Synergy Research Group estimated the size of the 2018 cloud market at $250 billion, growing at an annual rate of 32%. Within the market, infrastructure and platform as a service grew at 50% and hybrid cloud managed software grew at 41%. Cloud infrastructure services also rose 48% last year.
Within the PaaS market, cloud-only services account for almost half of all service offerings.
The cloud has emerged as the foundation for next generation enterprise capabilities, such as artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics.
Even with rapid cloud growth, most enterprise workloads continue to sit in noncloud environments, which has forced major providers to take great steps in the hybrid cloud market. Providers are also doubling down on how to make the migration to the cloud as smooth as possible for customers.
