If you have delayed your decision to begin offering cloud services, wait no more. According to CompTIA’s Second Annual Trends in Cloud Computing survey, cloud computing is generating significant revenue streams for channel pros, who plan to increase their investment in the cloud in the next 12 months.
Of the 400 VARs and 500 IT and business professionals in the United States who took the online survey, the trade association found that 46 percent of those offering cloud solutions derived 50 percent or more of their annual revenue from cloud-related products and services this past year. If that’s not a rosy enough picture, 85 percent of these cloud veterans expect continued growth in their cloud sales in the next 12 months. “This clearly underscores the momentum cloud is having … and the variety of opportunity avenues available to the channel,” notes Carolyn April, director, industry analysis, CompTIA.
The various services offered by survey respondents in the past 12 months are:
- Mobile application development. As a result of their cloud-based sales, nearly 60 percent of respondents with $20 million or more in annual revenue made money from mobile application development.
- Cloud integration work. Despite describing themselves as having “light involvement” with the cloud, about 40 percent of respondents say cloud integration work generated revenue.
- Post-sale integration work. Roughly 80 percent of surveyed IT pros benefitted from post-sale integration work.
Channel pros’ current revenue-generating solutions include cloud-based email, storage, backup and recovery, and business productivity applications. However, more sophisticated services, such as collaboration and analytics, are also on the horizon for cloud solution providers, according to April. “These are lucrative opportunity areas that generate significant integration work between internal and cloud-based systems and applications and other clouds,” she says.
