As of 2020, Europe had a cloud computing market of nearly €54 billion. SaaS was the main segment with Cloud Computing (CC), taking up around 63% of the total. IaaS and PaaS were at distant second and third places, with 20 and 17%, respectively. All segments are expected to grow year by year in the near future. Software as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service are expected to more than double by 2025; and PaaS is expected to be more than triple the size it was in 2020.
The European CC market is like no other in the world. Europe represents around a quarter of the global IT market, and cloud computing is turning into one of the highest priorities for European CIOs. Moreover, the cloud computing market is expected to grow at a rate of 20% per year and reach €44 billion by 2024.
The appearance of Europe-wide regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) have made it crucial for European enterprises to make sure that they comply with such regulations, thus affecting their CC offering and acquisition. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA), which have been proposed by the European Commission, aim to develop a safer digital space. Such regulatory schemes may represent barriers for newcomers and established service providers, as they have to adapt their services to satisfy them. But they may also represent an opportunity for CC entrepreneurs who can make these conditions work to their advantage.
Source: data-flair.training/blogs/future-of-cloud-computing
Frequent and successful Open Source Software business models include providing complements to existing solutions, e.g. providing support services or customizing existing solutions to accommodate the specific needs of customers. It is argued that entrepreneurs must analyze the specific market they are targeting in order to find the right combination of proprietary and open products and services.
Given these trends, entrepreneurs looking to maximize the outcome of their projects should try to:
- Find opportunities where cloud computing can allow them to provide services in a more efficient manner, either because they can have larger revenues or because the margins are larger than using other alternatives.
- Combine an efficient technology with a sensitive business strategy. In other words, their proposition should make sense from a technological and business point of view.
- Make their business model, their offering, relations with customers, etc. related to their project cloud-compliant.
Documents
- D3.3 Recommendations for cloud computing business modeling, analysis & acceleration – Vol 1 (PDF Available here)
- D3.4 Recommendations for cloud computing business modeling, analysis & acceleration – Vol 2 (PDF available here)
VIDEOS
Horizon Cloud Summit 2022: Digital Transformation for Businesses – Pain points for startups and SMEs
Horizon Cloud Summit 2022: How to accelerate cloud adoption in Europe
Horizon Cloud Summit 2021: Accelerating Cloud Business Innovation