Even in the midst of widespread economic turmoil, a recent global survey of C-level executives and IT decision-makers shows that they are depending on technology to cut cost for doing business.
Cloud Computing is being seen as a viable solution to reduce capital expenditures and operational costs. Cloud computing refers to the delivery of software and other technology services over the Internet by a service provider.
An independent market research firm, Kelton Research, completed a survey of cloud computing adoption in January 2009 commissioned by Avanade. In the United States in particular, two-thirds of respondents consider themselves early adopters of technologies. Globally, nearly half consider themselves early adopters. Around 71 percent business executives and IT decision-makers worldwide and 87 percent in the United States agree that cloud computing is the real deal, it is seen as a viable technology option. The majority of companies surveyed (54 percent) use cloud computing to cut costs.
But ironically, majority (61 percent) of companies are not using cloud computing technologies at this time and the vast majority (84 percent) of those are currently dependent on internal IT systems and have no plans to switch to cloud computing technologies in the next 12 months.
Security threats and loss of control are major reasons for companies to shy away from adopting cloud computing.
Companies are using cloud computing to manage and deliver business applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) and human resource (HR) services.
Avanade says half of the companies surveyed that have migrated to cloud computing technologies use it to "manage and deliver business applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) and human resource (HR) services". Forty-six percent of respondents are also using cloud computing for data storage.
Speaking of greater flexibility and agility, the Avanade survey suggests that the service model is taking over as the prevailing IT value proposition. As Avanade puts it, the "online services model is beginning to fundamentally change how IT services are consumed and provisioned in large organizations. More than half of the respondents reported that they are currently using Software as a Service applications. In the United States, that number increases to more than two-thirds (68 percent)."
And many of these deployments are internal cloud. Avanade says that globally, "there is a 2:1 ratio of respondents who prefer SaaS delivered internally (or as private services) versus from third-party service providers. There is an even greater disparity in the United States, with a 4:1 ratio in favour of internal SaaS deployments."
