Consumer cloud services for accessing content will be integrated into 90% of all connected devices by the end of 2013, according to technology research and advisory firm Gartner.
Personal cloud services are designed to allow consumers to store, sync, stream and share information using multiple connected devices such as smartphones, media tablets, televisions and personal computers over the Internet.
Gartner estimates that consumers will spend approximately $2.2 trillion on digital technology products and services in 2012, which is about 10% of the average disposable household income. By 2015, consumers will spend some $2.8 trillion worldwide on connected devices, the services that run them and content that is transferred through them.
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Gartner’s managing VP Andrew Johnson notes the “shift to the personal cloud will accelerate rapidly in 2012 as consumers learn how to use new services on their devices, and as cloud services become part of people’s lives, device vendors and platform providers must integrate cloud services in order to win customers in 2012 or risk being displaces by those that offer these services.”
Services such as Netflix, Google Apps, Amazon Music, Microsoft SkyDrive and Apple’s iCloud have contributed to consumers adoption of cloud-based services as part of their digital ecosystem. Therefore, the notion of personal cloud is not new, but the refinement and diversity of services for consumers is.
Companies have been offering personal cloud services, such as online backup and synchronization, for years. However, noted Johnson, a big change has occurred during the past couple of years, with the growing adoption of mobile and portable devices that have limited internal storage and rely heavily on cloud services.
Despite the growth of personal cloud services, Gartner said that traditional storage will not disappear overnight, but will instead be augmented as a consequence. Gartner predicts that personal cloud services will become widely adopted by 2015, but that in 2014 less than 10% consumers will use cloud services as their main storage.
