Cloud computing is about efficiency. Cloud computing is about replacing thousands of underutilized server rooms and IT departments with shared facilities with higher utilization rates.
By it's very nature and promise to increase efficiency and lower costs, Cloud computing will eliminate more jobs than it creates. It may very well create 14 Million jobs, I'm not knowledgable enough to dispute that, however I'd argue it probably takes away several times more than that.
Analyst firm IDC has released a new report which indicates that public and private spending in cloud computing will increase exponentially over the next few years, resulting in an available jobs boost of nearly 14 million worldwide.
A similar study, published in 2012 by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), suggested that the global expansion of cloud technology in the enterprise would boost the global economy; 289,000 of available cloud computing jobs of which would be centered in the UK.
IDC’s results suggest that 200,000 is more likely to be the UK’s cut — but also suggests that revenues will increase overall by $1.1 trillion a year due to cloud technology.
By using cloud technology, it is possible for businesses worldwide to reduce the time and resources required for IT upgrades and maintenance of older computing systems, although the investment required in training staff how to use such technology has not been included in the report.
John Gantz, SVP at IDC said:
“Enterprises that embrace cloud computing reduce the amount of IT time and budget devoted to legacy systems and routine upgrades, which then increases the time and budget they have for more innovative project.”
According to IDC, the number of jobs that will be made available will not differ significantly based on the size of the companies in question. However, it is mainly communications, banking and manufacturing that will take advantage of cloud technology to improve business strategy and implementation.
It is expected that the majority of jobs will be made available in the BRIC area — namely Brazil, Russia, India and China, rather than Europe, the Middle East, and Asia (EMEA). This may be due to the size of the workforce available, potential for growth and availability of manufacturing resources.
Gantz said:
“We tend to think of China and India as emerging markets, but they’re actually early adopters of the cloud. They’re not bound to existing systems. They’ve skipped that step, so there’s less holding them back.”
Almost 1.2 million cloud-computing related jobs are expected to be generated in the United States and Canada. IDC also predicts that smaller companies are more likely to adopt cloud-computing platforms due to their ability to more easily slip the constraints of existing legacy systems.
Image credit: John Seb
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