What is going to happen in the cloud computing industry within the following few years? According to QuoteColo, cloud spending will continue to increase around the globe, and cloud based technologies will continue to play an important part in the creation and management of the future IT markets and products.

But we don’t necessarily have to look that far into the future; some of the big industry players are already pushing up new cloud based technologies.

Updates to Office 365

Microsoft is currently implementing new Office 365 features which are designed to provide consumers with a more granular control over their data. The new controls aim to quell consumer concerns that Office 365 allows customers to access data too easily, and that it doesn’t have a tight enough grip on the overall control of said data.

Due to these new features, the companies will have the ability to see how their employees interact with content and determine if their actions lead to security and/or regulatory compliance concerns.

The Unlimited Storage War

In other news, in the uber competitive cloud storage market, Amazon has recently deployed the ultimate challenge to every other cloud firm currently in operation: unlimited cloud storage for consumers, at the bare bones price of $5 per month.

With Dropbox recently dropping their professional storage pricing models and increasing the amount of additional storage members receive when a friend signs up, along with Google Drive and Box seemingly waging a never-ending price war for storage, the Amazon gamble is a clear sign of how competitive the market has become.

Speeding up Deployment

A major concern for all companies is keeping their data in house, while still gaining the benefits of cloud deployment. Keeping in this line of thought, HP has recently announced the Helion Rack.

The Helion Rack is HP’s pre-packaged private cloud. Instead of having to build a private cloud from the ground up, the HP Helion Rack aims to target businesses looking for the power, flexibility and data security of a private cloud, without having to worry about the time to deploy it.

Based on open source technologies, the platform is designed for businesses entertaining the idea of deploying a private platform built upon the OpenStack cloud.

While other cloud vendors – Dell, Uturn, IBM – already offer a prepackaged private cloud, the entrance of HP into the market only helps to solidify the standing and need of private cloud deployment for SMBs, without having to worry about the technical knowhow and time of deployment.

Looking at the overall projected revenue growth, the cloud adoption rates and the projected reasons for cloud adoption over the next few years, it becomes wholly clear that the cloud isn’t a passing trend, a fad.

With companies like Amazon, HP, Microsoft and other major providers doubling and tripling down on their cloud services to stay competitive, consumers are winning. And the more consumers win through cloud investment, the more providers continue to challenge one another for the best footing.

In the end, the cycle is cyclical. This is a great thing for consumers, a great thing for businesses and a great thing for whatever technology is next to come. Make no mistake about it, we are currently living through an age where cloud based infrastructure will be harnessed as the foundational technology of whatever is next to come.

Large-scale providers know this, and that is why the trend towards higher cloud adoption is a 100% safe bet.