Cloud expert predicts 2011 trends

Cloud computing saw significant growth in 2010. In 2011, the cloud looks to expand even more quickly as businesses overcome their hesitancies and adopt cloud services. Jeffrey Kaplan, writing for ECommerceTimes.com, sought to forecast some of the emerging cloud trends for 2011.

Kaplan is the managing director for THINKstrategies and founder of SaaS Showplace. He expects cloud computing will grow even faster in 2011 than most currently think. “The cloud computing market will grow more rapidly than analyst firms forecast as organizations move from asking 'what is cloud and why is it important' to 'where and how can I capitalize on the cloud today!?!,'" [sic] wrote Kaplan.

Kaplan also predicts that the corporations will shift their concerns about the cloud. Currently, he wrote, their top areas of concern are reliability, security and integration. Next year, firms will focus more on governance issues and cloud optimization and monetization.

Additionally, new cloud services will emerge, including Data-as-a-Service and Business Process-as-a-Service.

Cloud computing services are skyrocketing in value. According to one recent study, cloud computing could boost the top five European Union economies by more than $233 billion per year by 2015.