Impact of Cloud & Mobility Solutions Steadily Increasing

IBM recently published the results of its “2011 IBM Global CIO Survey,” the most recent biennial CIO survey. An important revelation of the survey was a chart that explains the increasing priority that CIOs are putting on both mobility solutions and cloud computing.
According to the IBM study, “both mobility solutions and cloud computing have increased significantly in relevance between 2009 and 2011, especially cloud computing, which is now firmly on the CIOs priority list.” As well, “business Intelligence and analytics still remained the CIO’s top priority but cloud computing has almost doubled its relevancy.” In IBM‘s 2009 CIO study, only a third of CIOs said they planned to pursue cloud to gain a competitive advantage. This year‘s study shows a striking increase in the focus on cloud, especially in media and entertainment, “which rose to 73 percent, automotive (70 percent) and telecommunications (69 percent).”
The considerable leap in the increasing relevancy of mobility solutions and cloud computing is quite dramatic. Handset manufacturers, including Samsung, HTC and Sony-Ericsson, are now involved in adopting the Android platform which is boosting the smartphone adoption rate. According to IDC Worldwide Quarterly Phone Tracker, January 27, 2011, “a total of 302.6 million smartphone units were shipped in 2010, compared to 173.5 million units shipped in 2009, an year-over-year growth of 74.4 percent. The smartphone market is booming.” In addition, the Apple iPad has created a new standard for tablet computers as mobile devices. The research firm, Gartner, “is predicting Apple will sell 47 million iPads this year, out of 70 million tablets worldwide, and that the overall number of tablets will grow to108 million next year.”  In addition, according to Gartner, “the iPad is expected to maintain its sales leadership until 2015, at least. Tablets running the Android OS won‘t overtake the iPad, but they will increase their share of the market from 20 percent this year to 39 percent in 2015.”
Global sales forecasts for cloud computing are expect to rise.  According to recent estimates from the research firm Forrester, “the global cloud computing market is going to increase from about $41 billion in 2011 to $241 billion in 2020.” As well, Forrester estimates that “the majority of cloud services will be delivered over the public Internet. It is expected that cloud computing will soon be apart of mainstream technology and will soon be the core of IT infrastructure.” Most new software companies coming into the the market will provide solutions built around SaaS. As well, PaaS is forecasted to see even growth and become an efficient alternative for developing custom applications.