There's been some talk about the effects of cloud on hardware sellers, so I'll give my 2cents...
Speaking from experience (I work as an Infrastructure Architect in IT), all the "cloud" does is centralise a number of "virtual servers" (i.e. a file on a disk, that the software comprehends as a working server) and they all run from one server, with redundancy built in (usually n servers, + 1 failver server; referred to as n+1. The most popular configuration is 2 servers + 1 failover).
At a first glance, you would assume this means lesser hardware that can support a larger number of servers. However, this virtualization technology (cloud) means the requested time for a server goes from weeks to hours. As such, demand for the virtual servers increases because I can turn them on and off in such a quick time.
The net result of this means one data center (owned by companies like Rackspace, Amazon, etc.) with a huge amount of hardware, supporting virtualised servers that a number of Small/Medium Enterprises require.
Additionally, backup/disaster recovery is becoming more and more critical. This means additional capacity to allow a business to run, should a server fall over, a data center fail or a network attached storage die.
Furthermore, virtualisation technology is improving at a rapid rate, which means changes in underlying hardware are required to allow for this. Hyperthreading, although not a new example, is a basic one. If a processor has hyperthreading, what is 10 cores can become 20 virtual cores, because the virtualisation technology and hardware support it. This is extremely significant when you have underlying hardware with 40 physical cores becoming 80 logical cores.
That said, there is a caveat to all of this. Physical servers of equivalent specification ALWAYS perform better (especially for databases). So there will always be demand from smaller players still buying bits and pieces of hardware.
This is all in my limited experience (8years or so in I.T.), so please take it with a grain of salt. Also happy to be corrected if someone believes my post is inaccurate in anyway.
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