SMEs to double cloud spend
This was found in a recent Microsoft survey, the global 'SMB Cloud Adoption Study 2011', which investigates how cloud computing will impact SMEs in the next three years.
The research questioned 3 258 SMEs that employ up to 250 employees across 16 countries worldwide to gauge their feelings and attitude towards cloud computing.
It also finds that the number of cloud services SMEs pay for will nearly double in most countries over the next three years.
The findings show an increasing opportunity for hosting service providers to profit in the cloud from offering services such as collaboration, data storage and back-up, or business-class e-mail.
According to Hostway, Marco Limena, VP of business channels, Worldwide Communications Sector at Microsoft, said though cloud adoption will be gradual, it will increase.
“As cloud computing becomes more ubiquitous and SMEs' existing IT becomes outdated, adoption will grow rapidly,” he said.
“Hosting service providers should consider the appropriate sales, delivery and support models to target larger SME customers that are more likely to pay for cloud services.”
The study also looked at the adoption of software-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service by SMEs and found that those adopting both services were larger, more growth-oriented and generally interested in additional services such as unified communications and remote desktop support, reveals IT Pro.
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