IT Spending on Cloud Ratcheting Up

A new survey from the Sand Hill Group shows that while companies don't spend a lot of money on cloud computing now, that will probably change within three years.

Currently, a majority (68 percent) of companies said that they spend 0-3 percent of their IT budgets on cloud. However, within three years, 16 percent expect to spend 30 percent or more of the IT budget on cloud computing. In addition, 8 percent will spend 21-30 percent, 22 percent will spend 11-20 percent, and 24 percent will spend 7-10 percent of the budget.

IBM's VP of Cloud Services Ric Telford agrees that the three cloud delivery models -- software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, and platform-as-a-service -- are poised to take off. "In five years, I would say we won't even be using the term 'cloud,'" he said. "It will just be the norm. It will be the way we do IT."