Cloud computing systems have had a great run lately, delivering value on several fronts to help enterprises lead some impressive transformative efforts. With new cloud systems, companies are changing the way they do business, seeing both lower expenses and, in some cases, better revenue as a result. Recently, Kable Market Research conducted a study on this front, and found that the already growing trend is likely to carry on in a growth pattern for at least the next year.

The good news here is that a large number of enterprises—from major enterprise figures to the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market—are all able to get in on this action, and that diversity of range and use cases will help give the market a nudge. Indeed, many have been looking at hybrid cloud services—a mix of traditional, on premises operations and cloud-based systems—as a means to take advantage of the cloud's flexibility while still satisfying the demands of various regulators. Throw in the value of and need for an increasingly mobile workforce and the value of cloud systems is clear.

As noted, the wide number of use cases is likely to fuel demand. Currently, about 13.5 percent of the cloud's market share is in the retail sector, while healthcare operations took up another 10.8 percent, and government operations 10.4 percent. There's a good mix of private and public cloud systems involved, as larger enterprises shoulder the cost burden of private clouds for better security and reliability, while smaller firms enjoy the cost-effective nature of public cloud.

Perhaps the cloud computing market's biggest challenge, meanwhile, is convincing those who aren't currently cloud users that cloud-based systems are safe. It was a widely-felt concern in the early days of cloud technology that putting valuable, proprietary information into such systems was asking for trouble, a point that has been carefully mitigated over the years yet still remains a concern of many.

This is actually good news, in a way. When large portions of a market have one major objection, it becomes comparatively easy to design marketing and sales pitches in a fashion that addresses that shortcoming. Whether it's testimonials from current users—a sort of predecessor to influencer marketing—or specific focus on new augmentations to security, addressing the “it's not safe enough” objection can be a major focus effort. That's likely to break down some walls in the process and improve sales—and thus market share—from there.

The cloud computing marketplace has already delivered quite a bit to the field, and its power isn't likely to wane any time soon. Whether Kable's projections come to pass or not, this is still a big new part of the landscape, and one that most of us will come in contact with at some point.