The IT Pro Podcast: Weathering the cloud slowdown
Businesses that don’t balance cost-cutting with cloud investment could face a difficult road ahead

Throughout the pandemic, companies across the world rushed to establish cloud services that could prop up the need for remote working. But in recent months, word of a “cloud slowdown” has been building, with some of the biggest vendors experiencing a drop in the growth of their cloud sales.
In the third quarter of 2022, AWS reported the slowest growth in its history, while Google’s growth was down almost 10% on the previous year.
In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Ross Kelly, IT Pro’s cloud specialist and staff writer to discuss what’s behind the cloud slowdown – and whether it’s even happening.
Highlights
“Google Cloud reported a 58% revenue growth in the first quarter of 2021. Now that was at the height of the pandemic, when you compare that to now we're talking about a 20% drop in revenue growth in that space.”
“Organisations know that this is a business critical function, they can't afford to not invest in this area of their business. And if they do neglect this area, then there's going to be serious problems for them when they emerge on the other side.”
“I think something that's worth noting here is that for many CIOs, for many organisations, this current economic environment is an entirely new experience for them, especially over the last several years where there's been a period of rather rapid growth in the cloud space.”
Read the full transcript here.
Footnotes
- Cloud growth experiencing ‘slowdown’ amid rising economic disruption
- Hyperscaler earnings 'highlight new era of maturity' in global cloud market
- Microsoft cloud revenue still sky-high as device sales continue to slide
- UK government cloud acceleration 'on horizon' as net zero performance slips
- Public cloud market expected to surpass $1 trillion in value by 2026
- Multi-cloud vs hybrid cloud – what's the difference?
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