The European datacenter life-cycle services market is expected to see a small decline in 2012 to just below $73 billion, but to pick up again from 2013 to reach a CAGR of 1.8% for 2011–2016. Growth will peak in 2014, and will then slow as a result of increasing cloud adoption, but growth will continue through the whole of the forecast period.

"New technology implementations and transition to cloud will have a huge impact on the datacenter services market — on project services as well as outsourcing and support," said Mette Ahorlu, research director, IDC European Services. "In five years' time, the market will look very different: vendors will have new roles, new vendors will be the strong ones and some will have disappeared, and we are going to see a wide range of new offerings, but there are still strong opportunities for service providers that focus and have a clear profile in the market. However, uncertainty and risk for vendors are growing and a strong position today does not guarantee a strong position in five years' time."

The study forecasts the datacenter life-cycle services market in seven segments: consulting, systems integration, IS outsourcing, hosting infrastructure services, hardware deploy and support, software deploy and support, and education. It looks at customer priorities and buying behavior, as well as growth drivers and barriers.