A Shift Toward Services

The "Trends" study said it's "not practical" for businesses to build a full stable of IT skills, which means "they must rely more heavily on provider services."

CompTIA's Robinson calls that an "important shift" for solution providers since they come from a product-centric background. "There's a tendency to look at cloud as another product, and certainly there are some aspects of that there," he told IT Best Of Breed. "But I think there are more aspects of cloud [that can enable] higher-level services."