Submission + - One in four cloud providers will be gone by 2015 (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: Cloud adopters face serious risk in the next two years because of the strong possibility that their provider will be acquired or forced out of business, according to Gartner.The research firm is predicting a major consolidation in cloud services and estimates that about 25% of the top 100 IT service providers in the infrastructure space won't be around by 2015. "One in four vendors will be gone for whatever reason — acquisition, bankruptcy," said William Maurer, a Gartner analyst. Most of the time, the changes will come through acquisition. There is pressure on providers to cut costs, but Maurer is advising enterprise users to be gentle with their vendors. "You need to make to make sure that your service providers are successful," said Maurer. "Give them a chance to make a reasonable return on their investments, give them a chance to make some money."