A Look Back at the Cloud Computing Trends That Emerged During the Decade: Part 2
Almost every corporate change is made on the basis of whether it will make the company more revenue or not. Two decades ago, most experts either did not think enterprises were going to generate any revenue from cloud computing or underestimated how much. While most enterprises didn’t know what cloud services could be used for at the time, that sentiment has indubitably changed quickly over the past decade.
Click here to read the first part of this series on cloud computing trends, where we explored how the sector got its roots and quickly went on to become a cross-industry standard.
As cloud computing enters a new decade, this is the perfect time to look back at the trends that emerged over these last 10 years. In this article, we take a look at how enterprises have utilised the cloud and what cloud service providers can learn from these usage trends in the future.
Trend #1: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS)
While SaaS helped tremendously with the popularity and diffusion of cloud services to small companies, the biggest moneymaker for cloud service providers has been Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and Platform as a service (PaaS). Apple, for instance, spends $30 billion on Amazon’s AWS every month to use the ecommerce giant’s cloud infrastructure on a pay-per-use scheme.
Adobe, one of the early adopters of cloud computing, made over $2 billion through its cloud offerings, including Creative Cloud and Document Cloud (PaaS).
Trend #2: Infrastructure Scaling (Pay-Per-Use)
The pay-per-use scheme is another trend adopted by enterprises both large and small. Since most businesses have fluctuating cloud computing requirements, purchasing a bulk of infrastructure upfront doesn’t make much sense. Cloud service providers, on the other hand, allow enterprises to opt for a pay-per-use scheme. The biggest benefit comes in the form of infrastructure scaling — which allows enterprises to use more cloud resources when they require it and less of it when they don’t.
Trend #3: Platform and Application Development (Private Cloud)
Even though public cloud has been in the spotlight for the majority of the past decade because of its astonishing growth trajectory, private cloud growth has been just as important. A private cloud allows enterprises to develop and test applications and platforms in dedicated environments without the risk of any failures due to workload. When it comes to security and reliability, the public cloud has improved leaps and bounds. However, businesses continued to prefer private cloud for sensitive data throughout the decade.
Another alternative to the private cloud is the hybrid cloud model that makes testing and development more affordable and accessible. We believe that this is one of the trends to look out for in 2020.
Trend #4: Storage, Backup, and Recovery
The ability to store files in a cloud and access them remotely has been the biggest use case for enterprises. The increased accessibility greatly improves productivity and not building data centers significantly reduces costs. In other words, companies are highly motivated to move to the cloud due to the logistical and cost benefits.
Another application becoming more mainstream (and will likely be a big trend in 2020) is analytics. Companies are using cloud computing to analyse and process big data to get crucial metrics like buying habits and purchasing power.
Takeaway: Cloud Service Providers Deliver On Demand
Each of these trends started out as the needs of enterprises. For instance, the need for infrastructure scaling led to the emergence of the pay-per-use business model. The need for greater security, meanwhile, led to the popularity of private cloud (and now hybrid cloud) platforms. The fact that cloud service providers have been able to recognise and deliver on these demands with enterprise-level solutions has made cloud computing something that companies just cannot ignore. Even niche markets and industries have taken to the cloud, thanks to innovative software solutions developed and sold by independent software vendors (ISVs).
However, one of the biggest challenges that most cloud service providers face is the lack of access to this level of information that helps them tailor their services to better suit their users. Furthermore, identifying prospective clients quickly can be a difficult proposition, especially in the context of an extremely crowded and competitive cloud landscape.
Oddup alleviates this problem by offering real-time startup activity and investment data so cloud service providers can tap into untouched markets faster and enjoy early-mover advantages. Oddup also provides a range of proprietary metrics, including the Oddup Score and Benchmark Valuation, which represent startup health and valuation respectively. The Oddup platform also streamlines the process of identifying emerging and potentially disruptive ISVs for acquisition, merger, or collaboration opportunities.
Take advantage of Oddup’s comprehensive data platform and suite of insights solutions by sharing your details here or reach out to us at enterprise@oddup.com.
