Cloud Is Rolling In

As the cloud takes up a larger chunk of corporate technology infrastructures – and budgets, solution providers are increasingly being called upon for their expertise.

The results of recent research from IDC bear this out. A survey by the Framingham, Mass.-based firm found that 45 percent of organizations see themselves as reaching the top level of cloud maturity in two years, nearly five times the number of organizations that see themselves at that level today.

In fact, IDC believes that, within two years, nearly three-quarters of businesses – 73.9 percent – will be at the top two levels of adoption of five it identifies, in the following order, from top to bottom: optimized, managed, repeatable, opportunistic and ad hoc. Today, 63 percent are at the bottom three levels, according to IDC.

“For many businesses, these ad-hoc and opportunity-led purchases have been their cloud entry point,” IDC wrote. “To gain broader business adoption, more planning is required so that deployments and benefits are repeatable, managed and ultimately optimized.”

How is this playing out for partners? And what lies ahead for them? Here are four things that stood out in IDC’s research.