It seems like the days of convincing people that Software-as-a-Service is the way to go are coming to a close.  The SaaS/Cloud industry is accelerating faster than many imagined and new heads are turning to get in on the action.  An article I came across on Forbes highlighted the inconsistencies in market size predictions for the Cloud industry and the over generalization of cloud.  What is the true value of Cloud and SaaS and which areas should we be investing in?  Here are some interesting figures to compare.

Market Size Predictions:

Market Research Media - $270 Billion in 2020

Forrester - $241 billion in 2020

Visiongain - $83 billion in 2016

IDC - $55 billion in 2014

HP - $143 billion in 2013

Where are People Investing?

Market for internal or private cloud solutions - including on-premise technologies, such as virtualization and registries/repositories

Market for third-party data centers supporting Software-as-a-Service  and Platform-as-a-Service solutions.

Joseph McKendrick, author of the Forbes article, conducted his own survey with Unisphere Research/Information Today Inc. and found that among 257 of the Independent Oracle Users Group:

Private Cloud

• 55% use private cloud or are considering its implementation
• 37% have already deployed private cloud - up from 29% a year ago

Public Cloud

• 21% use public cloud services to support their enterprises - up from 14% in 2010

Private vs. Public

• 45% of companies with workforces greater than 10,000 use a private cloud
• 11% of mid sized companies use a private cloud
• 1/3 of companies with fewer than 1,000 employees use a public cloud

Summary, larger companies can afford and want the security of a private cloud.  While this may be a place to invest, there are many companies developing the security of public clouds and soon companies may not want to spend extra money on a private cloud when they can have the same security for less.  I would agree with the Forbes article, cloud market predictions are all over the place and the cloud industry is more varied than the general public understands.  It will be interesting to see how predictions change as more people are educated on cloud and the technology develops.