Externally delivered cloud computing services accounted for more than 10% of all enterprise spending in the second quarter of 2010, according to IT analyst Gartner.

In a survey of nearly 1,600 global IT budget management professionals, conducted between the start of April and the end of July, 39% of respondents reported that their business had allocated funds for provisioning cloud services. Nearly half (46%) of these respondents said that some of these services are being delivered externally.

Gartner highlighted the fact that organisations were increasingly using external cloud services provisioned on a utility basis to outsource non-core IT infrastructure such as email. This allows for increased focus on core assets and competitive differentiation, Gartner says.

“This is yet another trend that indicates a shift in spending from traditional IT assets such as data centre assets and a move toward assets that are accessed in the cloud,” observed Bob Igou, research director at Gartner. “The trends are good news for IT services providers that have professional services geared to implementing cloud environments and those that deliver cloud services.”