Here Come the Cloud Services Brokers

411856">Appirio to give him guidance about the various strengths and weaknesses of each vendor's offering. Appirio is among an emerging class of companies known as cloud services brokers, which help companies figure out which services can best meet their needs.

Just as a consumer would turn to a travel agent or an insurance broker, companies in growing numbers are relying on these cloud services brokers. By 2015, at least 20 percent of all cloud services will be handled via brokers, rather than directly—up from less than 5 percent today, according to Gartner Research (IT).

In the future, companies may hook up with more than a dozen different cloud services providers. Brokers would serve as intermediaries, offering such services as customization, integration, security, and aggregation. Through 2014, cloud service brokerage will generate more than $5 billion in sales—up from less than $50 million this year—making it the fastest growing area of cloud computing, Gartner said earlier this year.

The need for brokers is compounded by the lack of standards in the cloud services industry, which means that information can't travel between different services without specially written code to translate among them. "If companies integrate it themselves, they have no hope of saving money," says Daryl Plummer, group vice-president of Gartner Research. In general, cloud services appeal to companies because they're less expensive than buying hardware and software.

Some brokers specialize in integration among various providers, including Salesforce.com (CRM), Workday, and Google.This group includes Appirio, Boomi, Cast Iron, SnapLogic, and more than a dozen other companies. Some have already become acquisition targets. On Nov. 2, Dell (DELL) said it had agreed to acquire Boomi. That announcement came just six months after IBM's (IBM) May 3 acquisition of Cast Iron. Neither deal's terms were disclosed.

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