Report: Government Spending on Cloud Services to Rise in 2015

A research group that informs government entities about global technologies released a new report this week that predicts continued government spending on cloud-based initiatives through the coming fiscal year.

IDC Government Insights released its report, "Perspective: Looking Up - U.S. Federal Cloud Forecast Shows Sustain Growth Through 2018," as a follow-up to its cloud spending forecast it released in July 2013, and it says that spending in the U.S. Federal Government on cloud services now represents approximately five percent of all its IT-based spending. The report suggests that a similar amount of spending will take place in FY2015.

The announcement that provides an overview of the report says the U.S. Federal CIO Council and the Office of Management and Budget have been urging government agencies to move their operations and data to the cloud in recent years. IDC points to the urging of those two groups as now realizing a long-term effect that has transformed government spending in a dramatic way.

The current year's spending actually ended up being higher than was originally anticipated. IDC points to an Office and Management and Budget figure that predicted government spending on cloud products would reach $2.2 billion in 2014. However, projections for the rest of this year show that spending will actually increase to $3.0 billion by the end of the fiscal year. IDC is also at odds with the Office of Management and Budget concerning predictions for FY2015. IDC expects spending to rise to as much as $3.4 billion while the Office of Management and Budget expects a decrease to slightly less than $2.9 billion.

IDC expects spending on private clouds to continue to increase through FY2018. Spending will reach $2.3 billion by the end of FY2014, and the research firm expects a rise to $5.9 billion by FY2018. In addition, IDC expects spending on public cloud services to rise from the current $173.3 million to $3 billion by FY2017, spending on community cloud services to grow from $406.9 million to $868.9 million by FY2018, and spending on hybrid cloud services to decrease from $135.1 million to $118.8 million by FY2018.