SME cloud adopters prefer single vendor

cloud adoption and deployment among small and medium businesses, based on a new report from Dell, ZDNet writes.

Conducted in partnership with global IT SME market research analyst firm Techaisle, the survey found that cloud applications are becoming much more prevalent at SMEs this year than one might have expected.

Selecting a single IT vendor to guide migration of applications to the cloud eliminates a major pain-point for SMEs: managing multiple vendors, Business News Daily reports.

Up to 50% of survey respondents noted significant challenges in keeping track of different service-level agreements, while up to 48% of companies said that explaining their business to each vendor was tedious and time-consuming.

The benefits of using cloud adoption closely match the reasons why SMEs chose the cloud in the first place, the study found. Nearly nine out of 10 (87%) of the adopters said cloud business applications provided a competitive advantage, and 85% felt they could now compete with larger enterprises on an equal footing.

As SMEs assess which cloud applications make the most sense for their businesses, the survey revealed that deployment services and application integration are critical for success, ITBusinessEdge notes.

As such, the survey in December 2011 of more than 400 US-based companies with employee bases ranging from 50 to 999, found that up to 69% of SMEs indicate preference to purchase cloud applications from a single, trusted vendor.

“This new research echoes what our customers are asking for,” said Paulette Altmaier, VP and GM of Dell Cloud Business Applications. “Customers are looking for a trusted IT partner who has evaluated the right cloud applications for their businesses and who can accelerate their time to value with turnkey services.”