Cloud Computing is one of the driving forces behind working UC models, effective storage solutions, and overall productivity. Its benefits have grown tremendously over the past few years, and so have the revenues of companies that embrace it. In 2011, cloud services helped generate $400 billion dollars in additional revenues for businesses around the world. With so much money being made by these services, how many jobs are we going to see produced in the next few years?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUktia_pbPc&feature=relmfu
Microsoft predicts that there will be 6.7 million cloud related jobs made worldwide in 2012, with that number growing in the future. In 2013 they estimate 8.8 million, in 2014 11.3 million, and 2015 a whopping 13.8 million cloud related jobs being created. Cloud based jobs will grow globally by 98% by 2015, mostly in institutions such as healthcare, education, and government.
About one half of all these new jobs will be created in China and India, as communications and media have become Asia’s faster growing sector. A shocking 1.8 million jobs will be created in the next few years for cloud based services alone in Asia. Latin America has also jumped on the cloud bandwagon, with Brazil and Mexico having 700,000 new jobs being created in the next few years. France, Germany, and Spain lead the European front, creating the most jobs for these services.
Although these numbers are impressive, I’m not that surprised. What does surprise me is how long it took for us to realize the benefit of cloud computing, and really start taking advantage of it. There have been services around for years, but this kind of technology could have been invested in long ago; businesses were just not sure about it. Even Steve Jobs, late CEO of Apple was a dreamer of cloud computer as far back as 1997. Here is a video of him talking about an idea of storing all your data away from your hard drive, so you would never have to worry about a crash or backing up your data again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or7zaUaP-J8&feature=related
So ready for it or not, the cloud is in your future, but don’t worry, it’s not a dark and stormy one. Cloud computing is creating its footprint on society, hopefully in a good way, and all we can do is embrace it.