As the coronavirus shows no signs of ending anytime soon, even as the economy begins to open gradually, remote work might become permanent. People will likely be forced to work from home while most of them will prefer the remote work arrangement as it gives them more time with their families and independence that many people need away from toxic places of work. With this trend, big players in cloud service providers are investing more.
After the social distancing and lockdown regulations were implemented to reduce the rates of infection from the virus, tech companies have saved many businesses from losing billions of dollars. Without the technologies provided by these companies, many businesses would have shut, and many people would have been jobless. The income and potential of cloud technologies have seen tech companies invest in their cloud businesses.
Alibaba and Microsoft are examples of tech giants that have accelerated their effort to improve their cloud services to meet the growing customer demands. With the investment by these companies, many people will be accommodated, and the organizations will expand their market reach to cover regions that were out of reach before. For Alibaba, for example, its partnership with Equinox will allow them to reach European, North American, and Asia Pacific markets away from China Mainland. The move will also see more personnel being recruited to provide cloud-related services for growing customers.
On the other hand, Microsoft Corporation and SAS have struck a joint strategic partnership deal announced in June that will make Azure the preferred cloud platform for SAS analytics. This partnership will see customers run their SAS tasks in the cloud with ease while allowing them to get business solutions that will enable them to expand their businesses and transform their service provision capabilities. Amazon, one of the most prominent players in cloud technology, is also expanding its remote access and cloud service, the latest move being the opening of a data center in Italy.
From statistics, all cloud companies are expecting the usage of their services to exceed plans due to the impacts of the coronavirus. For example, the Industrial IoT Market Research Report found out that the cloud computing market is likely to grow to $7,078.35 million by 2025 up from $3,966.66 million in 2019. This growth is occasioned by the ability of the cloud to transform operations of a business by allowing them to focus on the core business operations while leaving technical aspects such as server management and infrastructure to professionals.
With the advancement of the cloud, many startups today have an easy time competing with established companies since they can save substantial amounts on infrastructure and other overhead costs. With the cloud, startups can expand fast due to the low cost of operations since they can only buy what they need and what they can afford. With the emergence of remote access technologies such as Zoom and other cloud computing solutions, we are likely to see more innovations in this area. It is clear that cloud computing is the future of business operations.