The evolution of cloud services will continue as users would test more of its capabilities in 2012, says IDC.
But, the research firm foresees a very different scenario by 2015, as cloud services will become an everyday sourcing option for the CIO, which will force changes on both the vendors and users of cloud services and technologies in its report entitled "IDC Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) Cloud 2012 Top 10 Predictions."
IDC Asia/Pacific Lead Analyst for Cloud Services Chris Morris said that in the next two years ‘the cloud’ as a marketing label will cease to exist, as the success of cloud services will mean that it will permeate the sourcing strategies of the CIO and business unit manager alike.
He adds, "With Outsourcing 3.0, the cloud will metamorphose into a universal service catalogue of individual cloud services. This will begin to replace both traditional information technology outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) engagements as well as on-premises infrastructure."
The CIO will become a service broker and aggregator, involved in sourcing, integrating and managing the services on behalf of their business units with Outsourcing 3.0.
Five of IDC Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) Cloud 2012 Top 10 Predictions, according to IDC’s regional and country analysts, are: less than half of end-users across APEJ will complete their private cloud projects by 2014; making 2 + 2 = 1: cloud service orchestration services lead the drive to Outsourcing 3.0; infrastructure as a service (IaaS) will become verticalised by 2013; by the end of 2012, 90% of telecom service providers (SPs) in the APEJ region will have brought a broad portfolio of cloud services to market; but, by end of 2013, their portfolios will become specialised as they redefine their preferred role in the cloud ecosystem and target specific markets; and cloud SP (CSPs) strategies based on aggregation and resale of IT and business services will fail to meet profitability goals by 2013 unless they can efficiently and effectively manage, support and bill services from multiple service providers.
