Channel Futures' Top Cloud Leaders of 2024

Public cloud shows no signs of slowing, especially thanks to burgeoning AI offerings, but private cloud also is coming back into fashion due to “some complex industry dynamics that started in 2024 and will play out in 2025.”

That’s per Lee Sustar and Tracy Woo, two principal analysts at Forrester, who are looking ahead to cloud computing trends for 2025. This year’s cloud leaders, as you will find, happen to agree with Sustar and Woo’s high-level assessment — and the Forrester researchers are folding in some nuances to their prediction that cloud channel partners will want to understand.

“Some persistent challenges will impact the public cloud market, such as supply shortages, quality concerns and data security, pushing new behaviors for vendors and users alike,” write Sustar and Woo in “Predictions 2025.”

“Hyperscalers will invest in AI model quality and increased GPU firepower to drive the new AI services, but at the cost of some sustainability goals," they wrote. "More users will seek out AI capabilities in the private cloud domain.”

Notably, going back to the resurging focus on private cloud, Forrester’s Sustar and Woo say this deployment approach “will gain momentum with VMware alternatives.”

“On-premises computing (by any name) is on the rise again as companies solve sovereignty, cost and data ownership/security challenges, but newcomers and private cloud expanders likely won’t look to expand business with dominant private-cloud player VMware given the bundling and pricing changes announced in the first half of 2024,” Sustar and Woo write. “As a result, Forrester predicts that in 2025 most major public cloud providers will increase investments in private cloud, and offerings like Nutanix and open-source projects like OpenStack will see increased user interest.”

Related:Channel Futures' Top EMEA Channel Leaders for 2024

All of that tracks with what many of this year’s cloud leaders are telling us, as well. Indeed, heading into 2025, the state of cloud computing is mixed, depending on your perspective, although all positive. In Channel Futures’ latest Cloud Leaders List, the 11 executives profiled share their views on the subject — some from the vantage point of public cloud, others from private, hybrid, edge and independent. Takeaway? It seems that, no matter where channel partners are focused in cloud computing, this select group of cloud leaders sees nothing less than continued demand for expertise from you.

And yet there’s much more to the state of the cloud in the coming year than deployment models. This year’s Channel Futures cloud leaders talk trends around repatriation, sovereignty requirements, sustainability and, of course, artificial intelligence. In fact, we asked each whether cloud and AI have become inseparable. We got a variety of answers, from total agreement to some hesitation.

Note that the 2024 Cloud Leaders List keeps its focus on providers that offer infrastructure, rather than applications or overall IT services. You’ll find VMware by Broadcom on our upcoming IT leaders list, for example. 

See the slideshow above for the full 2024 Channel Futures Cloud Leaders list, which we present in alphabetical order by last name.

Check out our other Leaders lists for 2024: