Predictions 2020: Cloud computing sees new alliances and new security concerns

Last year, Forrester predicted that enterprises would start modernizing core business apps with cloud computing in 2019, and that transformation has indeed taken off. 2019 also brought major acquisitions (IBM completed its acquisition of Red Hat, and VMware reabsorbed Pivotal) and surprising new alliances (Oracle partnered with Microsoft on high-speed links between Oracle Cloud and Azure, and VMware brought its Cloud Foundation to Google Cloud). The always-changing cloud provider landscape changed again -- bringing frenemies closer together and expanding the reach of incumbents. Think you know who's winning the cloud computing wars? Think again, because the battleground has shifted.

In 2020, we'll see the public cloud market, including cloud applications (SaaS), development and data platforms (PaaS), and infrastructure (IaaS) services combined, grow to $299.4 billion. Even with slower growth on the horizon, this is tremendous success for a consolidating, maturing market on its way to half a trillion dollars in just a few years. Also, currently, 65% of North American enterprises rely on public cloud platforms, and 66% run internal private clouds.