The Personal Cloud Is Trending Up – Way, Way Up!

By Marie Alonso 1

Personal clouds are going to control your world. Well, that may be overkill—or is it? According to a new report, the personal cloud is trending high, with Apple (AAPL), Dropbox, Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) dominating the rapidly advancing landscape of personal cloud cornerstones.

Personal cloud services are fast becoming the core of doing business in an escalating mobile landscape. What is the personal cloud? A personal cloud is a cloud-based platform utilized as a repository for data and applications. It is ideal for business and personal utilization, including document-sharing. Most critical, it is built for the 24/7 mobile professional.

In The Personal Cloud: A Strategic Imperative for Operators by Pyramid Research, perspectives of top operators are shared along with an analysis of the personal cloud market today. Insights, gathered by operator online surveys, demonstrate a view of today’s personal cloud environment and assessments of how today’s leading operators are positioning their personal cloud services for greatness.

Released April 15, the report offers detailed analysis of the global personal cloud market, with market size forecasts covering the next five years. The report also provides an overview of the current status of the personal cloud market and how operators are positioning themselves to influence and reign over it.

What trends are revealed?

Personal cloud services offer many benefits and opportunities for operators that are well-positioned to differentiate their services.

According to Pyramid Research, the personal cloud business—virtual storage services with device backup, sync, data sharing and mobile access—is ruled by technology companies, including Amazon (AMZN), Apple, Google and Microsoft, as well as pure-play Dropbox.

In the past couple of years, adoption has ballooned: The global number of personal storage accounts reached almost 1.25 billion at the end of 2013, racking up 60 percent annual growth since 2011.

At the same time, operators have increasingly focused on the personal cloud, and Pyramid Research expects that more than half of all operators around the world will have launched such a service by the end of 2014.

How massive will personal cloud usage become in a short window of time? It’s safe to say the trend toward optimizing the personal cloud is only just ramping up as more and more mobile professionals revel in the convenience of working in a cloud all their own.

Marie Alonso is an online marketing and media strategist at Miles Technologies, a leading IT company. The Miles Technologies team contributes business-driven content to The VAR Guy regularly.