2022 Cloud Computing Predictions: What Vendors, Partners Have to Say

Organizations’ rush to adopt more cloud computing amid pandemic conditions is, by now, old news. Yet the effects of that shift continue to ripple, and will for a long time. The coming year will mark just the start of some new evolutions in the cloud market.

2020, of course, was defined by COVID-19-fueled moves to the cloud. Organizations were forced to implement cloud computing so they could support remote work despite global lockdowns. This frantic shift led to many messy deployments and shadow IT that posed threats to security and privacy. (And hackers took great advantage as a result.)

2021 marked the year of cleanup — understanding which cloud applications and services resided within organizations, making sure they fit strategies and budgets, and tightening security measures. Throughout all that activity, channel partners remained pivotal even as they faced the same technology and staffing challenges as their customers.

Heading into 2022, SMBs, enterprises, government agencies, nonprofits and other entities will keep evaluating and implementing cloud computing. Indeed, Gartner predicts end-user spending on public cloud services alone will grow 21.7% to $482 billion next year. What’s different for 2022 is that executives and their channel partners will invest with more intent and expertise than perhaps they have so far. That’s because business leaders better understand the value of cloud computing, as well as its challenges. As such, they likely will make some changes to shore up spending, spend in the right areas and support company initiatives.

In the slideshow above, we examine a number of the trends expected to arise in 2022. And we share, alongside our own analysis, industry experts’ predictions for the coming year in cloud.