The "personal cloud" is growing in importance as it shapes how employees operate across their digital lives, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com) End-user computing (EUC) and digital workplace managers responsible for building the digital workplace will be increasingly challenged as the personal cloud continues to evolve and intersect with IT initiatives, says the research group.

"The personal cloud is the collection of content, services and tools that users assemble to fulfill their personal digital lifestyle needs across any device. Each user's personal cloud is unique and evolving, as the user's daily needs change and as vendors and products come and go," says Stephen Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner. "Looking forward, we see continued upheaval and challenges from the blending of personal and corporate digital tools and information within each user's life."

The next wave of the personal cloud will be shaped by two key trends — increased access to personal information and increased intelligence applied to the user experience and against the user's information. Already, new photo apps have emerged that apply robust recognition algorithms to personal photos stored in cloud services, to automatically tag locations, people and events.

"The rate of change is accelerating as new technologies like Windows 10, ubiquitous sensors, wearables and smart machines alter the landscape and further blur the lines between consumer and enterprise computing," adds Kleynhans. "By 2018, 25% of large organizations will have an explicit strategy to make their corporate computing environment similar to a consumer computing experience."