IT Cloud computing adoption could give EU top 5 €763bn boost over five years, 2011 the year of Cloud and a ‘third industrial revolution’. Research by the Centre of Economics and Business Research (CEBR) reports that widespread adoption of cloud computing could give the top five EU economies a 763bn euro boost over five years and create 2.4m jobs.

The report suggests that the rapid uptake of Cloud computing service offerings (will make them) progressively cheaper as economies of scale take hold and service offerings mature. The findings are backed up by analysts such as Gartner which predicts that by 2012, 20 percent of companies will not own their own IT assets.

The CEBR acknowledges that its estimates depend on numerous assumptions and uncertainties, but it forecasts that by 2015 the EU’s top five economies – Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain could get a boost of 177bn euros, and create nearly half a million jobs a year.

Piers Linney, joint CEO of a Cloud services and unified communications company Outsourcery, a founder member of the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), said, “The Cloud revolution has been likened to the third industrial revolution after the automation of production and the arrival of steam power in the nineteenth century.  Cloud services democratise IT as powerful applications are now available to businesses of all sizes. The Cloud saves businesses money, increases productivity, reduces risks, increases flexibility and transfers what were fixed costs in to variable costs. It is becoming clear that Cloud computing is going to achieve mainstream adoption in 2011 as businesses realise the benefits and that Cloud service providers can offer security and resilience that event large corporates are unable to afford.

He continued: “A number of technological, societal and economic developments have aligned at the same time that will ensure that the Cloud is absolutely the future home of computing power. The Cloud computing revolution will transform the way all business interface with technology and communications, and marks the next wave of the fundamental changes that the evolution of the Internet has already brought about.