Sharp rise in “cloud computing” services. - The cloud computing market (which effectively means the outsourcing of data management to an external company) will grow more quickly than expected this year, according to forecasts by the Gartner information technology research company. Global corporate spending in communication and information technology is expected to rise by 3%, to $3 628 million in 2012, instead of the 2.5% previously forecast. Although spending on computing services alone will progress by a moderate 2.3%, to $864 billion, specific cloud computing services will increase by almost 20% in 2012, to $109 billion, as opposed to $91 billion in 2011. These figures are only valid for public “cloud” services, namely network information sharing for all client companies. Currently, it is the big US groups that are able to propose “cloud” services (Amazon, Dell, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Rackspace, Verizon) but Japanese groups are beginning to leap into this breach in Europe, such as Fujitsu and NTT. The reasons why cloud computing is making progress are manifold. The crisis and reductions in spending are the most common reasons insofar as renting out the services of an external company to keep hold of data is becoming cheaper than investing in additional information technology equipment for increasing storage capacity. The phenomenon is therefore expected to increase over the next few years. In 2016, the global cloud market is therefore expected to double compared to its size in 2012. (IL/trans/fl)