Emerging markets set pace for cloud adoption

cloud applications are still in the minority of all applications, companies in Latin America and Asia Pacific have a much higher proportion of cloud applications to total applications, India Blooms reports.

The average Latin American company has almost two fifths (39%) of its total applications in the cloud. Asia Pacific follows closely behind with over a quarter (28%). In contrast, less than one fifth (19%) of the average US company's applications are hosted in the cloud. In Europe, the figure is closer to one 10th (12%).

According to the Sacramento Bee, the study considered the factors driving companies to shift on-premise or put new applications into the cloud and the competitive advantages those applications are generating. According to the study, on average, companies in all regions are deriving benefits from cloud. Yet, as the most aggressive adopters of cloud applications, Latin American and Asia Pacific companies also report greater gains.

N Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD of TCS, said: "We have reached the inflection point in cloud computing and there is no turning back. Cloud-based applications are already a substantial piece of large corporate IT infrastructure and the early benefits achieved are too substantial to ignore. There is huge scope for growth in both developed and emerging economies and we firmly believe that cloud computing will continue to open up opportunities for companies across many different functions.”

In Asia Pacific and Latin America, cloud applications are expected to be at least half of total corporate applications by 2014 - 50% for Asia-Pacific companies and 56% for Latin American firms, Cloud Pro notes.

US companies projected cloud applications to increase to 34% by then. The European companies surveyed expected that cloud applications as a percentage of total applications would double 24% by 2014.

The study also revealed that overcoming fear of security risks remains the key to adopting and benefiting from cloud applications. While companies globally admitted this is the biggest challenge to leveraging cloud today, those in the US and Europe remain especially conservative in their approach to cloud adoption for fear of data security breaches.