It looks like Hybrid cloud is finally here. We’ve seen a decade of posturing, marketecture, slideware and narrow examples but there’s little question that the definition of cloud is expanding to include on-premises workloads in hybrid models. Depending on which numbers you choose to represent IT spending, public cloud accounts for less than 5% of the total pie. As such there’s a huge opportunity in hybrid, outside of the pure public cloud; and everyone wants a piece of the action. 

The big question is how will this now evolve? Customers want control, governance, security, flexibility and a feature-rich set of services to build their digital businesses. It’s unlikely they can buy all that – so they’re going to have to build it with partners. Specifically vendors, SIs, consultancies, and their own developers. The tug-of-war to win the new cloud day has finally started in earnest – between the hyperscalers and the largest enterprise tech companies in the world.