Sometimes you can get a better idea of what the weather will be like by taking all the local news' weather forecasts and averaging these out. This is especially useful if you live between two major television markets. The principle may also apply to cloud computing, as a string of reports recently emerged to give us a rundown of the cloud computing market's future.

Generally, the forecasts look bright, though to varying extents. Gartner (News - Alert), for example, expects the public cloud services market worldwide to increase 18 percent over 2017, reaching $246.8 billion. That's up from $209.2 billion in 2016. Cloud computing in general, meanwhile, is expected to trend upward as well, going from $67 billion in 2015 to $162 billion in 2020. That's a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19 percent.

Gartner isn't the only one calling for gains, either; Amazon's own figures for Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) (AWS) show a 43 percent growth over last year's figures, and AWS itself contributed 10 percent to the overall revenue profile. It's also fully 89 percent of Amazon's consolidated operating income. Wikibon expects a 16 percent CAGR for enterprise cloud spending through 2026, and that Amazon Web Services will account for around eight cents of every dollar spent on cloud in 2022.

With cloud computing spending rapidly growing, it's easy to see why so many are paying attention to this market. Spending on cloud computing is actually seeing a growth rate that's 4.5 times faster than the rate of the entire IT market spend, and that's been the case since 2009. By 2020, says a report from IDC (News - Alert), that will reach over six times IT spend.

Naturally, no two forecasts here are the same, and many often cover different segments of the overall cloud computing market. So trying to determine a course of action here likely won't be easy. The key point common to all of these forecasts is that the cloud computing market, in some way, shape or form, is going up. Growth patterns will likely be jagged and unpredictable as some parts grow faster than others, so trying to pin down exactly where the biggest growth will be will be difficult. However, cloud computing in general is likely to be on the rise.

Whether an investor in cloud computing technology firms, or just someone looking to add cloud computing tools to everyday operations, those not involved are likely to be left behind. It doesn't matter if it's a competitor that has a cloud computing edge that another company doesn't, or someone who's about to make a killing in cloud technology investing. The point is cloud is gaining ground, and will likely leave those that don't have a presence here in the dust.