How channel partners are set to drive new cloud computing growth

The worldwide cloud computing infrastructure market had another strong quarter in Q4 2018, as spending grew 46 percent to nearly $23 billion. The total outlay on cloud infrastructure in 2018 exceeded $80 billion - that's up from $55 billion in 2017 according to that latest market study by Canalys.This investment makes cloud computing services one of the most important sectors in the IT industry, not just by the rate of growth, but also due to its expanding size. Amazon Web Services (AWS) remained the dominant cloud service provider in Q4 2018; its market share of customer spend unchanged at 32 percent. Microsoft Azure grew its share to 16 percent against 14 percent in the same period a year ago. Google Cloud reached 9 percent for the first time, while Alibaba Cloud maintained its 4 percent share.IBM, Salesforce, Oracle, NTT Communications, Tencent Cloud and OVH rounded out the top 10 cloud service providers.