Public cloud computing mart seen at $109 billion

The public cloud computing services market is expected to grow 19.6 per cent to reach $109 billion globally this year on the back of infrastructure as services area, which is the fastest-growing area at 45.4 per cent, Gartner said.

However, business process services (BPaaS) will remain the largest segment, accounting for about 77 per cent of the total market. “BPaaS is the largest segment primarily because of inclusion of cloud advertising as a sub-segment. BPaaS is forecast to grow to $84.2 billion in 2012, up from $72 billion in 2011,” Gartner said.

Through 2016, cloud advertising will continue to account for about 47 per cent of total public cloud services spending. Software as a service (SaaS) is next-largest segment and is forecast to grow to $14.4 billion in 2012, while IaaS is forecast to grow from $4.3 billion in 2011 to $6.2 billion in 2012.

In 2010, IaaS market was less than one-third the size of SaaS market but by 2016, it will grow to almost equal the size of SaaS market, Gartner said.