TOKYO -- Research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) is expecting the cloud services in Japan to continue to expand rapidly, achieving an estimated market size of 153.4 billion yen in 2014, or 4.9 times larger than in 2009.

In 2010, Japan cloud services market grew by 41.9 percent year over year, reaching 44.3 billion yen. 

Cloud services provide organizations with rapid systems integration and reduce management, operation, and maintenance costs. 

According to IDC, until 2009, vendors promoted cloud services as the most suitable solution for all enterprises' needs. However, at present, an increasing number of vendors advocate to choose the right cloud services by workload, taking into consideration the enterprise's scale and industrial sector, the systems/application area, and the appropriateness of deployment models (public/private, etc.).

"Choosing the right cloud services by workload deepens an enterprise's understanding of cloud computing, thus further promoting the use of cloud services," IDC said. "The Japan cloud services market will continue its strong growth with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.5 percent in 2009–2014.

In previous years, the challenge faced by vendors was to attract users by showing the superiority of cloud services in comparison with existing IT deployments, such as on-premises and hosting services. However, with deeper understanding of cloud services among enterprises and an increasing number of vendors offering cloud services, differentiation among cloud services has gained importance.

Satoshi Matsumoto, research manager, IT Services, IDC Japan, explained that one of the characteristics of cloud services is self-service, facilitating the users' access to the service and eliminating the need for complicated procedures. Self-service also reduces the sales administrative costs incurred by vendors and improves user convenience. However, many enterprises are using face-to-face sales and support, therefore self-service may actually impede the infiltration of cloud services.