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SME cloud productivity app adoption slow

Joanne Carew
By Joanne Carew, ITWeb Cape-based contributor.
Johannesburg, 06 Aug 2012

SME cloud productivity app adoption slow

More than 60% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are using or plan to use cloud-based file sharing services, but only 20% are considering the cloud for applications such as spreadsheets, word processors, presentation creation and other productivity applications, ZDNet says.

That's one of the key findings of a new survey by Spiceworks, an IT professional social network, that was sponsored by high-tech vendor EMC.

The Spiceworks research reflects the options of 323 users across North American and EMEA. The Spiceworks poll found that e-mail is also making its way into the cloud quickly, with close to 50% of the respondents using some sort of hosted e-mail service.

In the survey, 62% report they are using some type of cloud application, up from 48% at the beginning of the year and 28% a year ago, Forbes writes.

Most of this growth is coming in online file-sharing services (such as Dropbox), but haven't moved into online productivity offerings in a big way just yet.

Cloud-based productivity suites have the lowest adoption rate among the three applications reviewed in this study. Nearly two out of three businesses have no plans to use cloud-based productivity suites.

Only 14% of those surveyed are currently using cloud-based productivity suites, and another 22% are thinking about adopting these services sometime in the future.

According to Adam Weinroth, Spiceworks executive director of vendor marketing, the increased acceptance of consumer products has changed the game for IT departments, Cloud Pro reports.

“Previously, all adoption cycles were led by IT. But they wouldn't have rolled out something as quickly as Dropbox,” he explains.

Weinroth says the take-up of consumer products by end users is something that should be taken seriously by IT managers and CIOs. “Some are starting to look at what employees are using - and using that a starting point for what products they should be using.”

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