Europe Cloud Adoption Not Following Classic Pattern

Technology diffusion often follows a pattern. In the past, innovations were born in university computer labs, then commercialized for large enterprises, before migrating into the mid-market, and finally small business.

At some point innovations would move into the consumer market. 

That pattern has been upended. These days, innovations still tend to be born in universities, but then tend to be commercialized first in the consumer market, before being adopted by business users. 

There also are geography patterns in technology diffusion, as well.  In the past, early tech adopters in Europe tended to cluster in the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries, with innovations then moving to other countries. 

But cloud computing seems not to be following that pattern. “Normally the path leads from the UK to the Nordic countries and then goes south to the Mediterranean countries,” said IDC Research Director Mette Ahorlu. “That’s not clear in cloud."

Southern Europe is struggling economically but we see some indication that they see cloud as a way to catch up,” she said. 

In other cases, the lower investment hurdles might be driving the interest. Given the financial and economic troubles in Spain, Greece and Italy, for example, users might prefer the lower  cost profile for cloud solutions that obviate the need for capital investments. Geographically, the United States will remain the largest public cloud services market, followed by Western Europe and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan),IDCsays.

But the fastest growth in public IT services spending will be in the emerging markets, which will see its collective share nearly double by 2016 when it will account for almost 30 percent of net new public IT cloud services spending growth.

Perhaps something of the same trend is at work in those regions, where access to high-end computing services, without the need to invest capital, is proving attractive.