For two consecutive years in 2012 and 2013, cloud computing (including software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service) has ranked third on a CIO's top five priorities list, according toGartner vice president Distinguished Analyst Tina Nunno at a the Gartner 2013 APAC local briefing held yesterday in Hong Kong attended by some 200 senior IT executives.
Gartner announced its2013 top 10 technology priorities last week. Ranking third, cloud computing followed analytics and business intelligence and mobile technologies, which were ranked the first and second respectively.
Nunno also advised that CIOs to anticipate significant changes over the next three years. Based on the Gartner 2013 CIO Survey conducted between September and December last year on some 2,000 enterprises, five % responded that all their critical applications and operations are already sourced via the cloud, 25% anticipated this will happen by 2016, 27% said by 2020, and 45% indicated "Do not know when."
On the same occasion, Stephen Prentice (pictured), vice president and Gartner Fellow of Gartner Research, presented Gartner's 11predictions in 2013. These predictions highlighted what Gartner viewed as the "most disruptive" IT technologies or trends that will occur between 2014 and 2017 (see figure 1 below), but none of the predictions specifically concerned cloud computing.
In the following interview withAsia Cloud Forum, Prentice explains why and offers his views on several issues of cloud computing ranging from its place on the Hype Cycle, how cloud is giving way to "big data" as the next loudest IT force, and the development of cloud standards.
Asia Cloud Forum: There has not been a cloud-specific prediction in your list of predictions. Has cloud computing fully matured? Where is it heading?
Steve Prentice: I wouldn't say fully mature. Butit's certainly more in the mainstream than it used to be. I wouldn't say people are taking it for granted -- people are aware of it. It has been featured in many of the predictions and some of the background. Cloud is becoming a delivery mechanism as it were.
The top predictions really are talking about disruptions, the new things, different things. And cloud is not as disruptive as it used to be. It's not new, and it's making steady progress.