In IDC"s Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker the revenue from sales of IT equipment for cloud infrastructure, including network gear, servers, and storage, increased by 21.9% year-over-year in 2015. This huge change, which includes spending on both public and private cloud, brings the share of total infrastructure spending going towards cloud up to 32.2% in the fourth quarter of 2015, up from 28.6% just a year ago.
The real standout champion in both public and private cloud spending was Ethernet switching, which saw a nearly 20% jump in private cloud spending and an astounding 56.9% growth showing the focus that the large cloud providers put on stable networking. Public cloud server revenue also grew at 28.9% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, showing just how large this change in IT infrastructure thinking has been on the market. In contrast, traditional IT infrastructure spending (non-cloud) actually decreased 2.7% in the same period.
The company seeing the largest growth is the network-focused Cisco, with 35.5% growth in 4Q15 over 4Q14, with Dell, also a networking powerhouse, coming in second at 26.7% in the same period. Most of the growth these companies are seeing comes at the expense of the direct sales from ODM companies, showing that the big spenders are enjoying the comfort and security of buying from large companies with proven support records, at least during the transition into the cloud.
Source: IDC | Image Cloud via Shutterstock
