IT as-a-service
451 Research explored the growth of “as-a-service” IT in its new Voice of the Enterprise survey. As reported by TechRepublic, the company found digital transformation is rapidly taking hold inside businesses. With firms already trying to migrate away from legacy on-premises tech stacks, cloud providers including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure are enjoying a boom time.
According to 451 Research, these two providers still account for most SaaS and cloud strategic partnerships. 35 percent of organisations expect Microsoft to become their most strategic partner by 2019, with 17 percent saying they’ll be allied with Amazon. Other providers, such as Oracle and Google, are also making gains as cloud SaaS becomes the IT stack of choice.
A difference of priorities
The drive towards SaaS appears to be universal across industries. Companies are prioritising different areas of tech though, with some looking towards emerging platforms while others experiment with fintech and data.
Across all enterprises, business intelligence and analytics was seen to be the single biggest priority with 45 percent of survey respondents expressing an interest. This shows the allure of data is still strong. It also underlines the importance of cloud environments to effective use of analytics.
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The next biggest priority was found to be AI and machine learning at 29 percent of businesses. Big data, software networking and containerised services follow closely behind. Blockchain, edge computing and biometrics featured towards the bottom of the list, at 12%, 7% and 7% respectively.
This could be because successful use of these technologies can be dependent on other priorities, such as serverless computing and business intelligence. Firms will be able to start trialling more emerging forms of technology as they complete their transition to cloud platforms.
Ideas are entering deployment
“The survey suggests that many – but certainly not all – organizations are finally reaching the point where they can focus on endeavours that help differentiate the business, instead of merely keeping the lights on,” said Melanie Posey, Research Vice President and General Manager, Voice of the Enterprise at 451 Research. “In 2018 we expect to see much of this effort focused around a new set of approaches to data optimization and analysis.”
Over the next couple of years, hype around new technologies may begin to translate into actual deployments. Digital transformation takes time and requires close business alignment to succeed. That 60% of enterprises are approaching cloud reliance shows that adoption of digital strategies is well underway, but most firms haven’t yet achieved all their aims.
