According to results of a landmark IDC/IDG Enterprise survey announced at the Cloud Leadership Forum this week, top information technology executives believe that cloud computing will have significant impact on IT organizations and IT vendors, as well as the enterprises they support.

More than 70 percent of those surveyed said they believed that by 2014, a third of all IT organizations will be providers of cloud services to customers or business partners.

Almost 80 percent of respondents felt that cloud service brokers that provide integration, management, security and other services across public cloud offerings will emerge as powerful industry players by 2015.

The survey findings raised a red flag for the IT industry as a whole, with nearly two-thirds of those surveyed agreeing that several IT vendors will stumble badly in the transition to the cloud over the next three years, putting them at risk of becoming the next Wang or DEC.

Nearly half of respondents feel that major cloud providers will have addressed uptime concerns so effectively in the next three years that reliability will be a non-issue in moving enterprises to the cloud. The findings also showed that most believed security -- a chief impediment to cloud services -- will instead become a major accelerator by 2015.

More than 80 percent of the respondents said that one-third of Fortune 1000 enterprises will deploy at least one business-critical system in the cloud. More than half of the IT executives surveyed believe that mobile-optimized cloud services will be a primary interface with customers by 2014.

The Cloud Leadership Forum, produced by International Data Corp (IDC) and IDG Enterprise (the media company comprising CFOworld, CIO, CIO Executive Council, Computerworld, CSO, DEMO, InfoWorld, ITworld and Network World), has brought together leading IT professionals and technology vendor executives to discuss the business-changing role of the cloud. The forum is taking place June 20-21, 2011 in Santa Clara, CA.

The findings from the "Future Proofing the Cloud" survey -- one of the most comprehensive cloud computing research initiatives of its kind -- included questions that explore how the cloud is changing the IT organization, as well as how the industry and technology itself may evolve. The research is being used as part of a session at the Cloud Leadership Forum, "Future Proofing: An Interactive Discussion."

"The cloud has been the subject of much debate and discussion, but this survey offers us new and unique insights, from a group of today's most influential IT executives and early cloud adopters," said John Gallant, SVP and chief content officer, IDG Enterprise.

"Together with the discussions taking place at this year's forum, these survey results are addressing a critical need, helping to shape the strategies that will guide enterprises toward a future in which the cloud will be essential to their success," said Frank Gens, SVP and chief analyst at IDC.

For more information about the study, please contact Wendie Larkin at wlarkin@topazpartners.com