Is Cloud Computing a Profitable Business?
Cloud computing is fairly new way of doing business and providing application and services, but a lot of people are seeing it as the “Next Big Thing” in the IT industry. /If you ask me, it is already shaking grounds and making the top news, and all IT managers should be considering and evaluating it, but that is just a personal opinion?/
Because Cloud computing is so new and many of the Cloud computing providers are private and don’t disclose their earnings, it is not easy to say if it is a profitable business to be in right now (2010). The other factor that makes things even more complicated, when trying to determine the profitability of Cloud Computing providers is the difference in the “Cloud” flavor of services they offer. Some specialize in SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) or just simply providing hardware.
Some of the “Big” Cloud computing providers that released their annual revenue figures are:
Salesforce.com – Definitely one of the biggest Cloud computing provider, if not the biggest right now. The announced a 2009 year-end revenue of $1.077 billion!
Rackspace Hosting – In 2009 Rackspace Hosting increased its cloud revenue to $56.4 million, which is 124.8% increase!
Amazon Web Services – Amazon’s IaaS revenue accounts for only 3% of their total revenue for 2009, or $735 million!
Savvis – Hosting services still represent the company’s bread and butter in terms of total revenue. In 2009 Savvis reported $7.4 million revenue from Cloud computing (IaaS and PaaS)!
Cisco Systems – Cisco is well known for providing hardware to aid building of cloud platforms. The company is also a SaaS provider via its WebEx and PostPath products. To this day, Cisco’s bread and butter remain the Switches division, which generated $3.4 billion or 34.9% of revenue.
Without any doubt, Cloud computing is a hot topic, but I will let you (the reader) to decide if Cloud computing providers are profitable, and if providing Cloud computing services is a profitable business to be in right now.
© 2010, SaaSChronicles. All rights reserved.
Leave a Reply
You must be to post a comment.