If there is one thing most IT research organisations agree on, it's that adoption of cloud computing among businesses of all sizes is likely to increase exponentially in the near future.
So says Zuraida Smail, Channel Manager for MWEB Business, who adds that MWEB Business's strategy is to make it easy and cost-effective for resellers to add value to their customers and deliver cloud-based solutions at minimal risk to themselves.
A recent survey on the adoption, impact and outlook for cloud computing in 2012, conducted by SAP and Knowledge@Wharton, revealed that almost all respondents believed cloud computing would have a major, positive impact on their organisation.
In addition, the survey found that businesses were investing in cloud computing in order to better respond to market challenges and opportunities, and to pursue new sources of competitive advantage.
Yet, despite widespread agreement on the potential impact and benefits of cloud computing, almost half of respondents said they still had minimal, or even no adoption, with only 10% having reached full integration of cloud solutions across their business.
"However, most research shows that businesses fully expect to do more in the cloud within the near future," she says.
Indeed, in its 2012 Global Cloud index, Cisco predicts cloud traffic will increase sixfold between 2011 and 2016, with nearly two-thirds of all workloads being cloud-based; and Gartner maintains that software as a service (SaaS) and cloud-based business application services will grow from $13.4 billion in 2011 to $32.2 billion in 2016.
"South African IT resellers must therefore use every opportunity to prepare themselves for this business-changing tsunami now, or find themselves as irrelevant as typewriter suppliers," Smail adds.
In order to make it easy for resellers to enter the cloud and provide their customers with cloud-based solutions, MWEB Business partners with resellers and enables them to on-sell their cloud-based solutions.
"Alternatively, resellers can take advantage of MWEB's hosted server and virtual hosted server offerings to develop and provide their own cloud-based offerings, such as messaging and e-mail, backup, videoconferencing, CRM and collaboration solutions, with little risk and no capital investment required," she concludes.
For more information about the MWEB Business Partner Program and how you can uncap the cloud, e-mail partnerprogram@mweb.com or call 087 700 0555.
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