The cloud gets a health check in new report

It’s easy, fun and therapeutic to skewer the latest jargon emanating from Silicon Valley; the flavor of the day is often so frivolous that it all but slaps “Doom is My Destiny” across its own press release. And yet, of course, essentially every staple of our daily technological diet was once mocked and maligned: social media, mobile commerce, “personal computers,” the idea of brands coming out of their ivory towers to blog (ahem), and, yes, even our beloved cloud.

Last month’s “State of the Cloud” report from Bessemer Venture Partners’ Byron Deeter opens with some playful reminders of end-is-nigh cloud prophecies of the past (and, sure, taking a few liberties with context in the process). From there, the cloud gets a health check that winds up being more like a checkmate for any lingering cloud skeptics.

A few highlights:

• Cloud revenue is up 10x since 2008, but the growth is still accelerating quickly and is projected to double again by 2018, hitting heights around $127.5 billion.
• Within that number, SaaS continues to carve itself a bigger piece of the pie, while on-prem spending slowly declines. CRM is already poised to reach a 5o-50 split between cloud and on-prem.
• 50% of internet usage is occurring on mobile devices, and enterprise mobile is an area with considerable monetization potential (even more so than consumer mobile). “Become great on mobile, or your next challenger will!” the presentation warns.
• If you’re a startup seeking that sweet, sweet venture capital coin, Bessemer and Deeter offer some hard targets for revenue growth and retention.
• Security looms as both an ongoing threat and a massive opportunity. The presentation includes a 10-step plan for “surviving in cyberspace.”

Check out the full deck for more details, or learn more about Central Desktop’s cloud collaboration and its impact on project management, file sharing and much more.