Federal Execs Expect IT Spending to Move Toward Gov’t Community Clouds in Two Years; IBM’s Andras Szakal Quoted

A new study underwritten by IBM has found that three in four information technology executives at federal agencies expect IT investment shifts in the next two years, FedScoop reported Monday.

The survey found that 26 percent of agency program management and IT executives expect their agencies to spend on government-only community cloud platforms in the next couple of years, up from 20 percent who said their agencies are currently investing in such platforms.

FedScoop polled 169 federal program management and IT executives and found that 38 percent of respondents said they currently spend on government-run data centers, but that percentage dropped to 19 percent when the respondents were asked about their IT investment in the next two years.

The study showed that 7 percent of respondents said they currently invest in commercial clouds, compared with 13 percent who said they anticipate their agencies to focus their IT investments on such platforms in the next two years.

Andras Szakal, vice president and chief technology officer of IBM’s U.S. federal business, said the findings seek to reflect the shift in IT spending toward multicloud computing and hybrid models.

“Multi-cloud, especially, is becoming the ultimate destination in infrastructure and an agency’s approach to architecture,” he said.

“The ability to use containers and AI is ultimately where all those agencies want to go. It makes sense that those using a hybrid model show more proficiency in using those technologies.”