Big Cloud Trends for the New Year

The good times continued for the cloud space in 2011. A look at valuations shows the growth rates remained strong and the acquisitions got much larger, as seen with Oracle’s (Nasdaq:ORCL)$3.4 billion deal for SuccessFactors (Nasdaq:SFSF).

So what might we expect this year? Well, the following are some observations from top operators in tech:

Allan Leinwand, CTO of Infrastructure Engineering at Zynga(Nasdaq:ZNGA): “Over the past year, a number of interesting start-ups have been building products that will deliver a ‘cloud in a box’ to the enterprise. In 2012, you’ll see products from these companies that are delivered in standard server hardware and, when installed into an environment, automatically turn the compute, storage and networking capacity into a private cloud. If you have spare infrastructure resources, these products will automatically discover them and allow an enterprise to harness these resources on-demand. I’ve seen some of these products in the making, and they will be transformative in delivering private clouds to many enterprises in the upcoming year.”Steve Herrod, CTO of VMware (NYSE:VMW): “I do see a rapid increase in the number of enterprises (not just big web companies) looking to harness all of the information they connect. I’m seeing the arrival of a new wave of applications that will leverage this insight, too. They speak to high-scale, real-time data analytics, ultimately helping companies provide better service, gain better insight, and spend their time and money more wisely. These apps will trigger new architectural foundations as well. We’re already seeing the rise of in-memory databases as well as more leverage of distributed systems for scale.”Chuck Hollis, VP of Global Marketing and CTO of EMC: “Enterprise IT is changing: That means surging demand for people with new skills (and new mindsets) across the entire IT function. I think in 2012 we’ll see phenomenal demand for a new skill set — ‘cloud credentials’ — in just about every geography and industry. IT professionals now have a unique opportunity to invest in the new skills and greatly increase their value in the IT marketplace.”Joe Payne, CEO of Eloqua: “Just as mass synchronization (Dropbox, iCloud, Evernote) is the trend on the consumer Web, we will soon see the emergence of a completely connected cloud for businesses. The cloud in 2012 will be one in which Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), for example, seamlessly connects to box.net for every user on every device in every geography. It’ll be a cloud in which marketers can connect remote data with their marketing automation, webinar and social monitoring systems — without needing any integration know-how. The cloud will be more than the best way to deploy software — it will also be the best way to make sure all business applications connect with one another.”Vineet Jain, CEO of Egnyte. “Hybrid is the new black — and we’re not talking cars. The amorphous cloud has certainly laid its claim to our hearts and minds, but enterprises aren’t going to just jump ship. Like the hybrid car strategy of marrying the known with the new, enterprises will adopt hybrid clouds that maintain the benefits of traditional servers with the accessibility of public cloud.”By Tom TaulliForbes - January 10, 2012