Cloud computing will give both individuals and companies huge opportunities, Microsoft Ireland managing director Paul Rellis told a recent Waterford business briefing.
“The power of computing that was once the preserve of large organisations can now be used by every organisation of every size,” Rellis said.
“Cloud computing is a new industry that Ireland can take advantage of very quickly. The technology space changes so rapidly but this is a transformation that will be sustainable over the next couple of decades.”
Cloud computing has the potential to create almost 20,000 new jobs over the next decade in Ireland. The impact report, by Goodbody Economic Consultants for Microsoft Ireland, claims Ireland is perfectly poised to capture “a disproportionately large” share of the global cloud market, which is estimated to be worth around €70bn by 2014.
“If Waterford businesses concentrate on developing competencies in cloud computing, perhaps working with the Waterford Institute of Technology to develop those competencies, there is nothing to stop the huge opportunities available in job creation,” Rellis told the audience of 100 people at ‘The Future is the Cloud’ briefing.
“It is up to the civic authorities, institutes of technologies and so on to try and make a difference here. There is no reason they can’t be more successful in Waterford than in any other part of the country,” Rellis added.
Neil Phelan, director of HCS Business Solutions, a certified Microsoft Partner, added the future is undoubtedly cloud computing.
“Technology has moved on so quickly. We moved from mainframe computing in the ’70s, to PCs in the ’80s, the internet and .com era of the ’90s and Noughties, and now leveraging on the internet era the cloud is set up to take a big leap over the next decade,” Phelan said.
Most companies and consumers are already using some form of cloud technologies and may not consider themselves as being cloud users, Phelan added. Services such as online backup and remote email filtering are cloud-based technologies many companies are already utilising.
