Businesses looking to cloud computing solutions can benefit from the lessons learnt from outsourcing, an expert has said.

According to Diptarup Chakraborti, a principal research analyst at Gartner, the service is maturing and vendors are now tackling issues such as synchronisation, data ownership and backup.

Speaking to Information Week, Mr Chakraborti added that some firms are concerned about being stuck with the same provider, but he said both parties could do their bit to establish a positive relationship.

“Apply lessons learned from outsourcing and hosting to cloud computing,” Mr Chakraborti suggested.

Global revenue from public IT cloud services is expected to reach $55.5 billion (Ј36.8 billion) by 2014, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC).

Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC, said cloud computing is “critically important” to businesses seeking to gain a competitive advantage as they bid to return to growth following the economic downturn.