Cloud market will total £146bn by 2020, says Forrester

But aspects of the public cloud will go into decline

The global market for cloud computing will grow from $40.7bn (£24.7bn) in 2011 to more than $241bn (£146bn) in 2020, according to a report from analyst firm Forrester called Sizing the Cloud.

These figures represent both public and private sectors of the cloud-computing market.

Interestingly, the report argues that the public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service model, pioneered by the likes of Amazon with its EC2 offering, will reach a peak of $5.9bn (£3.5bn) in global revenues by 2014, then enter a period of significant commoditisation, price deterioration, and margin pressure.

As a result, between 2014 and 2020, this market will decline, and revenues will stand at an estimated $4.8bn (£2.9bn).

The public cloud software-as-a-service market currently stands at $21.2bn (£12.8bn) in total revenues, and is expected to increase significantly over the next five years to $92.8bn (£56.3bn).

Between 2016 and 2020, however, the market will begin to saturate and growth in this period will be less significant.

Forrester predicts that public cloud platform-as-a-service revenues will increase from $0.08bn (£0.03bn) in 2011 to $11.91bn (£7.2bn) in 2020.

Private cloud solutions will continue to be popular among businesses, and Forrester predicts that this market will grow from $7.8bn (£4.7bn) in 2011 to $15.9bn (£9.6bn) 2020.

Middleware virtualisation, although only just beginning to feature in private clouds, will grow at the fastest rate of all the services.

Forrester forecasts that by 2020 it will be the largest private cloud segment in terms of total revenues, at an estimated $9bn (£5.4bn).