Cloud Computing in Europe Could Provide €250 Billion EU GDP Growth in 2020

According to a new IDC study conducted on behalf of the EU, removing barriers to adoption of cloud services would have a strong impact on adoption in the EU, increasing the value of spending on public cloud services from €35.2Bn to €77.7Bn by 2020.

According to the model developed by IDC, if the EU adopts a 'no intervention' policy towards cloud adoption, cloud could generate up to €88 billion of contribution to the EU GDP in 2020. However, if the EU follows a proactive a “policy-driven" scenario towards cloud, it would generate up to €250 billion GDP in 2020, corresponding to an increase of €162 billion over the 'no intervention' scenario. 

"We estimate that the cumulative impact for the period 2015 to 2020 will be €940 billion in the “policy-driven” scenario, compared to €357 billion in the “no intervention” one," said Giuliana Folco,  IDC research vice president, European Industry Solutions.

That might be a bit optimistic, though, as there seem to be other reasons for resistance to cloud computing. 

The fear of a US-owned cloud company turning over personal data of a European citizen to U.S. authorities, plus a less positive view of outsourcing in general, are retarding the growth of cloud computing in Europe, according to Christian Echeyne, director of IT infrastructure technologies and engineering for Orange Business Services. 

Of course, some might simply argue that U.S. cloud computing adoption also lags behind Asia-Pacific and Latin America adoption as well.