Hybrid multi-cloud computing investment trends and CIO strategies

As more enterprise CIOs and CTOs embrace hybrid multi-cloud deployment strategies, business technology vendors and cloud service providers must continue to evolve their go-to-market approach - in recognition of the prevailing IT infrastructure investment trends. Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products for cloud environments, including public and private cloud, grew 47.2 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2018 (3Q18), reaching $16.8 billion, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC also raised its forecast for total spending (vendor revenue plus channel mark-up) on cloud IT infrastructure in 2018 to $65.2 billion, with year-over-year growth of 37.2 percent. Quarterly spending on public cloud IT infrastructure has more than doubled in the past two years reaching $12.1 billion in 3Q18 and growing 56.1 percent year-over-year, while spending on private cloud infrastructure grew at half of this rate, 28.3 percent, reaching $4.7 billion.