The research firm estimated less than 10% of consumers will use cloud services as their main storage in 2014, and personal cloud will become widely adopted by 2015.
Traditional storage will not disappear overnight but will, however, be augmented by the consumer personal cloud, Gartner says.
Despite that, Gartner recommends technology vendors to start taking action and make personal cloud services a core part of their development efforts.
A key to consumer cloud services, Gartner notes, will be educating people about the role of the cloud, and how new business models such as subscription and streaming services can coexist with existing services they are familiar with.
Delivering an invisible content synchronization experience is also vital.
Personal cloud services can’t be tied to one specific device or platform. An invisible experience means it works on anything. Failure to protect consumer data, or a lack of service reliability, could lead to a consumer backlash and a co-dependence on local storage, on top of privacy and security concerns, the research firm adds.