AI-generated summary
The health and rapid growth of Cloud Computing are evident through the soaring valuations and significant market activities of leading companies. A decade ago, no private cloud company was valued at over a billion dollars, but today, there are 55 private cloud “unicorns” and an additional 44 public cloud companies valued above a billion, totaling 99 major players. The cloud ecosystem is marked not only by its size but also by strong interdependence, highlighted by over 90 billion euros spent on mergers and acquisitions in the past year, including IBM’s $30 billion purchase of Red Hat and Microsoft’s nearly $7 billion acquisition of GitHub.
Cloud Computing has been pivotal in enabling new business models and services, beyond cost savings. It offers immediate access to the latest technology, facilitates collaborative innovation projects, and allows real-time solution adjustments based on demand. This model underpins the ongoing “Digital Transformation” or “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” identified as the primary driver of cloud growth. According to Forrester, cloud initiatives were projected to represent 70% of all technology spending by 2020, underscoring its disruptive impact. The industry is now maturing, with increasing standardization and compatibility across public, private, hybrid, and multicloud infrastructures. This evolution, supported by open-source movements, enables greater portability of workloads and more fluid data flows, signaling a new phase of cloud technology maturity.
The impact of Cloud Computing goes beyond technological development, presenting itself as a disruptive change in business models and digitalization.
To get an idea of the health of Cloud Computing, we just have to check the valuations of the main Cloud Computing companies and the most significant movements:
A decade ago, there was no private cloud company valued at a billion dollars. Today, there are 55 unicorns (Tech Unicorn refers to tech companies that reach a billion dollars worth at some stage of their capital raising process) in the private cloud. If we include the additional 44 public cloud companies, there are 99 cloud players valued at over a billion. What is really remarkable about the cloud ecosystem is not only the size of the market, but also its interdependence: in the last year more than 90 billion euros have been spent on large mergers and acquisitions (the most notorious, the purchase of Red Hat by IBM (30 billion euros), the acquisition of GitHub by Microsoft (almost 7 billion euros) and SendGrid joining Twilio (2.6 billion euros).
Many of the great innovations in business models and new services would not have been possible without Cloud Computing. The most important thing is not the saving of investments, which also, but:
- access to the latest technology immediately,
- the ease of tackling open innovation projects with collaborations often in co-request mode .
- and the ease of pivoting solutions based on demand, almost in real time.
The so-called “Digital Transformation“, or also “Fourth Industrial Revolution” would not be possible without a model such as Cloud Computing. In fact, several studies and surveys highlight that the Digital Transformation faced by companies and institutions is the main growth factor of Cloud Computing.
According to Forrester, Cloud Computing is one of the most disruptive trends of the last 15 years in the technology market. Cloud initiatives are expected to account for 70% of all technology spending by 2020.
Cloud computing is entering a phase of standardization and greater compatibility; a sign of maturity in any technology sector. Cloud infrastructure (public, private, hybrid, or Multicloud) is becoming less isolated, allowing workloads to be more portable and data flows more mobile. This standardization is largely due to the movement of open code.