As IDC Sees It, Tech's 'Third Platform' Disrupts Everyone

This also implies that third-platform providers (more on this below) will be on fire as enterprise IT wakes to its critical need to identify, select, learn and implement new platforms. Finally, it means that IT organizations must reskill rapidly - and those IT employees who fail to embrace the new way must be weeded out. Look for lots of employee churn in legacy vendors and users as they adjust to this new infrastructure reality.

Public Cloud Strong, Will Only Get Stronger

In addition, IDC essentially (though not overtly) declares the private vs. public cloud computing war over, with a decisive victory in favor of public cloud computing. In terms of total spending, IDC predicts that 2014 will see $100 billion invested in cloud use, with fully 75 percent spent with public CSPs.

[ Commentary: AWS Competitors Get Bad News From Gartner ][ Counterpoint: Why IBM Will Win the War With Amazon Web Services ]

On the face of it, this flies in the face of what private cloud advocates often state - that much of total IT spend occurs in private data centers and, therefore, private cloud computing will eventually emerge as the most common application deployment location.