Cloud Hosting

BY SANDRA GUY Business Reportersguy@suntimes.com March 5, 2012 6:36PM

Hostway Software Engineer Youngtae Kim works in the company's 100 N. Riverside office. Hostway is one of several companies hiring new employees because of the trend toward 'cloud' computing. The Chicago area is expected to gain 38,000 new jobs by the end of 2015 because of this trend, according to a new report being issued Tuesday. | Rich Hein~Sun-Times

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Updated: March 5, 2012 8:07PM

The buzzword cloud computing a way for companies to buy less-costly computing power on demand is forecast to create 37,868 jobs in the Chicago region by 2016, a whopping 64 percent increase from todays number, according to a forecast released Monday.

The jobs range from cloud computing engineers who command $115,000 to $145,000 yearly salaries to cloud technologists who start at $80,000 annually, to jobs in sales, marketing, finance and production at both IT companies and their business clients.

Nationwide, cloud computing is forecast to add 1.1 million jobs and, worldwide, 14 million, in the next three years, according to the IDC research firm. Local companies said Monday they are adding jobs as cloud computing expands.

Hostway Corp., which employs 60 at its data center and corporate headquarters inside the Boeing building in downtown, expects to expand its workforce by 10 percent in the next four to five years to accommodate cloud computing growth, said Chief Financial Officer Mark D. Adolph.

We will see growth in hiring in the data center, network operations and network systems, as well as cloud-related salespeople, product managers and research-and-development employees, he said.

Cloud computing lets companies in retail, banking, insurance, transportation, construction and professional services eliminate the expense of buying their own computer servers, which can cost $30,000 to $300,000. That is expected to enable these companies to hire more employees not only in IT but in jobs that help them innovate, said Adam Hecktman, director of the Microsoft Technology Center in Chicago, which employs 700. Microsoft also operates a data center in Northlake.

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Cloud computing growing jobs, says Microsoft