Vendors boast of huge cloud investments
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Dell and Microsoft reveal billion dollar investments in cloud computing, as IBM launches raft of cloud services
The IT industry’s biggest names are investing staggering quantities in cloud computing infrastructure, and are keen for the market to hear about it.
Yesterday, software giant Microsoft told news agency Bloomberg that it will spend 90% of its $9.6 billion research and development budget (around $8.6 billion) on cloud-related technologies.
Today, computer maker Dell said that it will invest $1 billion in a number of cloud related initiatives, including a number of new data centres of its own to support cloud services of its own, and various ‘Global Solution Centres’ to help customers build their own cloud computing infrastructure.
This afternoon, IBM announced a raft of new cloud-based services including SmartCloud, a hosting platform for applications or analytics, and various software products with which to build private clouds. IBM said it expects cloud computing to contribute $7 billion in revenues by 2015.
In November 2010, Gartner analyst Jack Santos warned of an approaching ‘cloud bubble’. “The current IT hubbub about cloud, now going on 3 years, is just another bubble,” he wrote. “In Gartner-speak, it is reaching the peak of inflated expectations. But the higher the peak, the greater the crash, and this peak has reached amazing heights.”
