New research from VC firm, North Bridge, adds to the body of evidence that cloud continues to take hold in the enterprise.
Image credit: Cloud Watching by Michael Krigsman
Although cloud growth may seem self-evident to those in the industry, traditional companies are slow to change and adapt new technologies. To serve these companies, the industry must prove its worth and provide solutions that these folks find valuable and useful. Studies such as this can help identify where businesses see opportunity in the cloud and where they are nervous about cloud solutions.
Also read: Three simple principles of cloud trust
Highlights from the research, which has the grandiose title Future of Cloud Computing 2012, include:
- Fifty percent of respondents are confident that cloud solutions are viable for mission critical business applications.
- Scalability remains the top reason for adopting the cloud, with 57 percent of companies identifying it as the most important driver for cloud adoption. Business agility ranked second among drivers for cloud adoption, with 54 percent of respondents focused on agility.
- Security remains the primary inhibitor to adoption in the burgeoning cloud marketplace with 55 percent of respondents identifying it as a concern, followed by regulatory compliance (38%) and vendor lock-in (32%).
- Software as a service (SaaS) is currently, and is expected to remain the primary type of cloud investment, with 82 percent of respondents citing it as in use today, and 88 percent expecting to use it five years from now.
- Platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) will see significant growth in the next five years, with PaaS growing from 40 percent to 72 percent and IaaS growing from 51 percent to 66 percent.
- Eighty percent of respondents identify big data as the most likely sector to be disrupted by cloud computing
- The majority of respondents (53 percent) believe that cloud computing maintains a lower TCO and creates a less complex IT workflow.
You can see the complete research presentation by clicking here.
It is particularly interesting that the 2011 survey had 417 respondents in contrast to 785 respondents this year. Aside from any other conclusions, this alone demonstrates increasing frothiness in the cloud market.
Although it does not break significant new ground, the research adds to our understanding of cloud growth and is a worthwhile contribution to the industry.
(Cross-posted @ ZDNet | IT Project Failures Blog RSS)
It’s encouraging to see the shift towards areas where cloud investments truly leverage potential benefits (i.e. scalability, flexibility, cost efficiencies, etc.). However it’s crucial that these investments start with true needs assessments like the one offered to SMBs by HP and VMWare (j.mp/vmvirt). Misguided investments in cloud — even within the PaaS or IaaS space could prove damaging if not in alignment with actual needs, goals and capabilities.
SaaS systems allow you to create a seamless flow of knowledge in your organization by allowing you to access information from any location you have an internet connection. And with more and more companies being run remotely and globally, the importance of sharing knowledge is increasing.
As an employee of a SaaS based system myself, AffinityLive.com, I know the importance for managers to have the ability to pull up past lead interactions before a meeting, logistics of moving pieces, quickly reference particular overviews and performance reports, and much more, allowing you to monitor your business on the move without actually being present for every interaction or event.