Channel partners have been slammed with COVID-19 deployments. It’s been easy to miss out on the latest cloud news. Here, we bring together some of the more under-the-radar cloud announcements you may want to know.

For instance, second-quarter cloud infrastructure spending reached new heights. The impetus? COVID-19, which surely comes as no surprise.

As organizations sent employees to work from home, they shifted IT spending to support cloud technologies for remote access. That added up to more than $30 billion in outlay worldwide, according to new figures from Synergy Research Group – $7.5 billion more than the same period a year earlier.

“As far as cloud market numbers go, it’s almost as if there were no COVID-19 pandemic raging around the world,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at the research firm. “As enterprises struggle to adapt to new norms, the advantages of public cloud are amplified. The percentage growth rate is coming down, as it must when a market reaches enormous scale, but the incremental growth in absolute dollar terms remains truly impressive. The market remains on track to grow by well over 30% in 2020.”

Per Synergy, Amazon Web Services remains the leader, holding around 33% of market share. Microsoft Azure came in next at 18% for the third consecutive quarter. And Google Cloud Platform rose a little higher to 9%, Synergy said. Collectively, China-based cloud providers Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu now claim more than 12% of the global market, according to Synergy.

So take a few minutes away from your COVID-19 deployments to see what you’ve missed on the cloud front since the pandemic began. It’s all in the slideshow above.