Research and advisory firm Gartner enjoys immense repute in the domain of cloud computing. Going into each New Year, the company draws an outline for the future of the cloud landscape.
An integral part of this future outlook for the cloud is what the major industry players are up to. The unique facet of this report is that it does not merely focus on the heavyweights of the cloud.
Gartner classifies various Cloud Service Providers (CSP) into four broad groups or quadrants. The two defining criteria for placing any CSP in a certain category are its execution ability and the overall vision.
The way any CSP visualizes the cloud computing trends and how it would position itself along these trends is definitely going to define its future viability and success.
Once a vision for the cloud solutions industry has been chalked out by a CSP, the next and most critical challenge is to convert this outline into reality. This can be achieved by setting tangible and quantifiable milestones.
As per Gartner, this segment constitutes the other critical success factor for any CSP, which is its ability to execute that vision timely and effectively.
The four quadrants in which Gartner has classified CSPs come out as Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries and Niche Players. The leaders are characterized by the best vision and strongest ability to execute it.
On the other end of the spectrum, lie niche players that do not lack the courage but the broad vision and execution ability sides tend to be weak. Perhaps this is the very reason they are classified as niche players.
This quadrant outlined by Gartner acts as a blueprint for enterprises and companies that are prospecting for cloud-powered solution providers. Each company tries to align itself with the CSP it deems closest.
Lastly, the most notable industry trend outlined by Gartner is the emerging importance of the multi-cloud. It won’t be wrong to say that multi-cloud is well poised to become what defines a cloud-based architecture.
CSPs will have to step out of their entrenched postures and wake up to the new reality which is multi-cloud. Such an environment will revolve more around collaboration and less on competition among CSPs.
