Survey: Value of the Cloud, Telecommuting Overstated
In a recent survey of mid-market IT decision-makers, cloud computing adoption and support for telecommuting had surprisingly low scores. Both are still seen as an option and not an answer.
CIO — Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Cisco, take notice: Despite the near-constant hype about cloud computing services, most mid-market companies are still viewing cloud as a complement, not a replacement.
SWC Technology Partners surveyed 210 mid-market IT and business leaders and found that cloud computing, at least for the mid-market and even more so in the enterprise, is still very early in its evolution. The survey also revealed a few surprises about the acceptance of telecommuting in the mid-market.
The disconnect between the hype of cloud computing and the actual implementation of cloud computing reared its head in the SWC survey. Only 3.7 percent of respondents said that their company has adopted a cloud computing solution for the entire company. And, over half (54.2 percent) of the respondents indicate that their company is not pursuing a single cloud computing initiative. Privacy and security (20.9 percent) were listed as the biggest concern when considering the cloud, followed by cost (9.8 percent).
"The technology industry can be rife with hype," said Elliott Baretz, Vice President of SWC. "Most reasons for eschewing the cloud have nothing to do with technology. Privacy and compliance and legal issues are what are keeping businesses on the sidelines."
Of the cloud services that are in production, Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint hold a comfortable lead, an indication that e-mail, productivity tools and document management are the top candidates to go to the cloud. Almost 65 percent of respondents using a cloud service are using Microsoft Exchange Online and 48 percent are using Microsoft SharePoint Online. Google is also in the running, with 24 percent opting for Google Cloud Services (i.e. Google Apps). Surprisingly, Amazon's EC2 cloud service only captured 7.4 percent.
Baretz says that most cloud adoption is happening at the SMB and start-up level where the cost to benefit ratio favors the cloud. "These are the companies that need to save money on infrastructure costs the most," he says.
The mid-market and enterprise remain cautious about controlling the hardware and software, but have not ruled out the cloud and see it as a complement to on-premise technology, according to the survey.
This comment from one respondent suggests as much:
"I don't foresee the cloud as replacing the traditional use model we have now, but rather augmenting it. The cloud is a way to share data across many devices, enabling a user to work anywhere at any time in the most efficient manner. It doesn't replace the need for high performing, well designed, and low latency local applications and end user support."
