The research firm is predicting a major consolidation in cloud services and estimates that about 25 percent of the top 100 IT service providers in the infrastructure space won't be around by 2015. "One in four vendors will be gone for whatever reason - acquisition, bankruptcy," said William Maurer, a Gartner analyst. Most of the time, he said, the changes will come through acquisition. "There is real risk."

"We're in the phase of buyer beware with cloud," said Michael Salvador, a technical solutions manager at Belden, which makes cable, connectivity and networking products. "You better do your research - there's no safety net out there."

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