For two consecutive years in 2012 and 2013, cloud computing has ranked third on a CIO's top five priorities list.
So said Gartner vice president Tina Nunno at a the Gartner 2013 APAC local briefing, held yesterday in Hong Kong and attended by some 200 senior IT executives.
Gartner announced its 2013 top 10 technology priorities last week. Cloud computing trailed analytics/business intelligence and mobile technologies, which were ranked first and second respectively.
Nunno also advised that CIOs to anticipate significant changes over the next three years. Based on the Gartner 2013 CIO Survey, conducted between September and December last year on some 2,000 enterprises, 5% responded that all their critical applications and operations are already sourced via the cloud. Around 25% anticipated this will happen by 2016, and 45% indicated that they "do not know when."
At the event, Gartner vice president and fellow Stephen Prentice presented the firm's major IT predictions for 2013. These predictions highlighted what Gartner viewed as the “most disruptive” IT technologies or trends for the years between 2014 and 2017 - and the cloud did not get a look-in.
In the following interview with Asia Cloud Forum, Prentice explains why, and offers his views on several issues of cloud computing - ranging from its place on the Hype Cycle, how cloud is giving way to "big data" as the next loudest IT force, and the development of cloud standards.
Asia Cloud Forum: There is nothing cloud-specific in your list of predictions. Has cloud computing fully matured? Where is it heading?
Steve Prentice: I wouldn't say fully mature. But it's certainly more in the mainstream than it used to be. I wouldn't say people are taking it for granted -- people are aware of it. It has been featured in many of the predictions and some of the background. Cloud is becoming a delivery mechanism as it were.
The top predictions really are talking about disruptions, the new things, different things. And cloud is not as disruptive as it used to be. It's not new, and it's making steady progress.