Cloud provides faster, flexible resources and economies of scale. It adapts as your business needs change and you only pay for what you use, providing businesses with specific solutions for their data needs.
In 2019, the Cloud expansion will continue, but private cloud will start to shrink. Organisations have seen the benefits of subscription-based SaaS, for providers that are progressive and proactive in the maintenance of their service. At the service-provider level, a combination of Serverless, IaaS and PaaS, will continue to outpace the private cloud. There is no doubt that Cloud will continue to be significant and evolve for all businesses.
Cloud rationalisation is accelerating in the Hyper-Scale Cloud Providers - as demonstrated by a shrinking portfolio of competitors in the likes Gartner Magic Quadrant for Global Cloud Providers.
Serverless approaches will become more prominent, as customers get comfortable with the level of customisation for those operating models. The Operating System will become more transparent, leaving developers to focus on the levels of protocols and API.
Microsoft Office 365 will also continue to dominate in the office productivity space, with the presence of self-managed email solutions to reduce. The effectiveness of a vendor managed patched and maintained Dynamics 365 service, means that customers will only need to monitor and audit the logical access permissions.