Monday Morning Impact – January 2

Forrester: Public Cloud Poised to Surpass $1 Trillion By 2026

According to Forrester’s Public Cloud Market Outlook, the public cloud market will top more than $1 trillion worldwide by 2026. As this market matures, however, the report suggests that more moderate public cloud growth will be influenced by several factors: intense competition among the largest cloud providers; fragmentation of the market due to regulatory and political tensions; and edge computing vendors capturing an increasing share of IT spending in relation to cloud.

Forrester further finds that cloud infrastructure services will account for nearly $496 billion in revenue in 2026, as hyperscalers battle the increased commoditization of infrastructure. The report says that while hyperscalers will increase investments in technologies such as custom microchips and advanced wireless networking to match competitors’ offerings, this will be more of an opportunity to retain customers and shift them to higher-priced services than a key driver of revenue.

To maintain their influence over the public cloud market, hyperscalers and providers will need to prioritize major investments in other differentiated premium services, including database and analytics fueled by customer demand for AI/ML, according to the report. As customers seek AI and machine learning for product innovation and greater operating efficiency, database and analytics services revenue will rise threefold to $89.5 billion by 2026, according to Forrester which also says that cloud AI platforms will drive revenue increases in these services. Additionally, cloud-native technologies are expected to gain greater influence as they are increasingly infused into AI/ML standards and as Kubernetes becomes the de facto standard for IT infrastructure in the cloud. Revenue in this market segment is expected to rise to $51 billion by 2026. Factors including serverless becoming integral to app development on cloud platforms, automation, and integration of low-code into cloud development will fuel this growth.
The cloud applications market — a category dominated by non-hyperscalers that lead in SaaS — is expected to hit market saturation at nearly $397 billion by 2026, but this won’t stop hyperscalers from focusing on strengthening their SaaS offerings and being the best hosts for SaaS, according to Forrester.

“Public cloud has experienced nearly a decade of high growth and acceleration, even amid pandemic-induced challenges,” said Lee Sustar, principal analyst at Forrester. “This growth will continue into 2026. It will be challenged, however, by competitive pressure for hyperscalers and providers to make massive investments in services like database and analytics, development services, and SaaS — all while maintaining high levels of infrastructure investment to keep pace with their rivals’ innovation.”

Channel Impact^®
To remain profitable, leading cloud players, in conjunction with their channel partners, will need to pivot their investments to analytics, AI/ML, and other differentiated premium services.

Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Low-Code Development Technologies Market to Grow 20% in 2023

The worldwide market for low-code development technologies is projected to total $26.9 billion in 2023, an increase of 19.6% from 2022, according to the latest forecast from Gartner. A rise in business technologists and a growing number of enterprise-wide hyperautomation and composable business initiatives will be the key drivers accelerating the adoption of low-code technologies through 2026, according to the report entitled, “Forecast Analysis: Low-Code Development Technologies, Worldwide.”

“Organizations are increasingly turning to low-code development technologies to fulfill growing demands for speed application delivery and highly customized automation workflows,” said Varsha Mehta, Senior Market Research Specialist at Gartner. “Equipping both professional IT developers and non-IT personas — business technologists — with diverse low-code tools enables organizations to reach the level of digital competency and speed of delivery required for the modern agile environment.”

Low-code application platforms (LCAPs) are projected to be the largest component of the low-code development technology market, growing 25% to reach nearly $10 billion in 2023.

Other low-code development technologies include rapid mobile app development (RMAD) tools and rapid application development (RAD) tools.

Gartner defines a no-code application platform as an LCAP that only requires text entry for formulae or simple expressions. The LCAP market, therefore, includes no-code platforms.

While LCAP is the largest market segment, citizen automation development platform (CADP) is projected to grow at the fastest pace, with a 30.2% growth forecast for 2023. Typical use cases of CADP include automating workflows, building web-based forms, bridging data and content across multiple software-as-a-service applications, and creating reports and data visualizations.

“The high cost of tech talent and a growing hybrid or borderless workforce will contribute to low-code technology adoption,” said Jason Wong, Distinguished VP Analyst, at Gartner. “Empowered by the intuitive, flexible and increasingly-powerful features of low-code development tools, business technologists and citizen technologist personas are developing lightweight solutions to meet business unit needs for enhanced productivity, efficiency and agility — often as fusion teams.”

Gartner predicts that by 2026, developers outside formal IT departments will account for at least 80% of the user base for low-code development tools, up from 60% in 2021.

Gartner forecasts that the spending on hyperautomation-enabling software technologies will reach $720 billion in 2023.

Channel Impact^®
Investments in low-code technologies that support innovation and composable integration will also grow as organizations embrace the composable enterprise.

Bugcrowd Launches Bug Bounty Program

Bugcrowd, a San Francisco- and Sydney-based company specializing in crowdsourced cybersecurity, has announced that Navitas, a global education provider, has launched a private bug bounty program with Bugcrowd to identify and resolve security vulnerabilities.

Under the bug bounty program, dozens of Bugcrowd security researchers will test Navitas’ web applications for security risks on an ongoing basis. Ethical hackers who identify and remediate any valid threats will receive a bug bounty financial reward of up to AUD $3,700 (USD $2,500), depending on the severity of the uncovered threat.

“Bugcrowd is excited to work with Navitas in assisting to protect both their data and applications with a comprehensive bug bounty strategy and a non-production testing strategy,” said Nick McKenzie, Chief Information and Security Officer at Bugcrowd. “Our extensive global crowdsourced security team has the ability to scale for Navitas’s requirements, provide critical protections around the clock, and through the introduction of non-production testing regimes will help the Navitas business deliver at a higher digital velocity.”

Channel Impact^®
The network of trained security researchers is expected to identify and resolve online vulnerabilities before attacks occur.