Cloud MARKET REPORT
“Unapproved or unauthorised cloud-based applications may open the organisation’s corporate
network and sensitive data open to risk.” Jesse Stockall, Chief Architect - Snow Software
“Unapproved or unauthorised
cloud-based applications may
open the organisation’s corporate
network and sensitive data
open to risk. It is my view that
the negative term “shadow
IT” should no longer be used
and instead this expansion of
technology should be seen as the
new normal. IT professionals
must nd ways of working
which are seen to be supportive
to workers and their preferences.
To help manage employee
behaviour and encourage
proper device usage, best
practice would be to rely on
a combination of approaches
including:
Security awareness education:
Find innovative ways to
communicate risks with your
workforce such as browser
hijacking, ransomware and
malicious software downloads.
is helps to educate sta on
what is appropriate and what
crosses the line. It’s important
to make this training tangible
and fun and to avoid hours of
compliance style videos.
Visibility of the organisation’s
IT estate: It is important
that you understand what
employees actually use dayto
day and week-to-week in
order to spot both unauthorised
usage and software installed
on end-user devices. If there
is an unapproved tool which
is being widely used across
an organisation, it may be
worth the IT team considering
investing in the tool or
investigating and providing an
authorised alternative.
Implement active
controls: rough the use of
Cloud spending in 2020
IDC’s forecast for 2020, after taking into consideration the
repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ensuing economic
crisis, is for $69.2 billion in cloud IT infrastructure spending, a 3.6%
predicted annual increase over 2019. Non-cloud IT infrastructure
spending is expected to decline 9.2% to $61.4 billion in 2020.
Together, overall IT infrastructure spending is expected to decline
2.9% to 130.6 billion.
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a severe threat to global
growth. Prior to the outbreak the expected global real GDP growth
was to be lackluster 2.3% (at market exchange rates) in 2020.
The emergence of the epidemic in China is a game changer and the
expected growth for 2020 is now -0.2%, the slowest rate since
the global fi nancial crisis. The negative effect on growth will come
via both demand and supply channels. On one hand, quarantine
measures, illness, and negative consumer and business sentiment
will suppress demand in specifi c areas, while certain pockets of
demand will surface, such as cloud platforms for communication
and collaboration workloads. At the same time, closure of some
factories and disruption to supply chains will create supply
bottlenecks. IDC expects these effects to be distributed unevenly
across the market landscape.
“While the beginning of 2020 was marked by supply chain issues
that should be resolved before the end of the second quarter, the
negative economic impact will hit enterprise customers’ CAPEX
spending,” said Kuba Stolarski, Research Director, Infrastructure
Systems, Platforms and Technologies at IDC. “As enterprise IT
budgets tighten through the year, public cloud will see an increase
in demand for services. This increase will come in part from the
surge of work-from-home employees using online collaboration
tools, but also from workload migration to public cloud as
enterprises seek ways to save money for the current year. Once the
coast is clear of coronavirus, IDC expects some of this new cloud
service demand to remain sticky going forward.”
IDC’s new fi ve-year forecast predicts cloud IT infrastructure
spending will reach $100.1 billion in 2024 with a compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of 8.4%. Non-cloud IT infrastructure spending
will decline slightly to $65.3 billion with a -0.7% CAGR. Total IT
infrastructure is forecast to grow at a 4.2% CAGR and produce
$165.4 billion in spending in 2024.
unauthorised or unapproved
technology, employees can
create security issues for an
organisation. It is therefore
critical that security remains
strong. Review your active
controls at the network
perimeter or with anti-virus
vendors to try and prevent
malicious downloads or
employees visiting known
piracy sites.”
ED SAYS…
Despite the short-term dip in spending in some areas of IT this year, cloud
spending is predicted to go up. The conversation on cloud has evolved,
the benefi ts cannot be ignored and there are few reasons not to utilise the
technology. The Channel has a real opportunity to catch those customers that
are using disparate systems or unsafe consumer applications before they suffer
a data breach. The lockdown saw cyber criminals increase their activities and it
would seem the SMB is squarely in their sights, protection and services around
this will be in high demand over the coming 12 months. For the partners willing to
adapt there will be plenty of fruitful opportunities.
www.commsbusiness.co.uk August 2020 | Comms Business Magazine | 37
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