The week cloud business roundup features the growth cloud computing adoption. It seems that businesses still have high hopes on cloud computing despite some caveats, such as cloud security issues.
Businesses plan to go cloud – no matter what
Take the latest survey by IBM on mid-size organizations, for example. The survey reveals that the number of mid-size organizations plan to go cloud increases by 50 percent compared to IBM’s survey back in 2009. What’s more, businesses also plan to invest more in mobile technology – an increase of 72 percent.
It seems that, despite some shortcomings, cloud computing does cut costs and improve productivity – something that convinces businesses to integrate cloud computing into their business.
SMBs prefer bundled cloud solutions
Here’s more cloud trends – AMI predicts that small and mid-size businesses (SMB) will budget more for cloud computing adoption; the predicted budget will rise to 15 percent of overall IT budget by 2015.
SMBs are getting more cloud-savvy, demanding packaged cloud solutions, instead of stand-alones in an effort to minimize cloud lock-ins – 40 percent of US SMBs are more interested in bundled cloud solutions, as shown in the AMI study.
Understand cloud computing risks
Every good thing must follow by bad thing – that’s the way the world goes; despite all the upsides, cloud computing poses some threats to businesses adopting the cloud.
Susan Wilson Solovic of AllBusiness.com recommends decision makers to do their due diligence in choosing the right cloud computing solutions for their business. She warns that cloud computing is still in its infancy, despite the huge potential.
Susan suggests businesses planning to adopt the cloud to shop around and ask important questions to cloud providers, such as regulations compliance; read the service level agreement in the contract so you are well-informed about what to expect.
Cloud solution providers respond
Big companies are investing in cloud solutions to serve the fastest growing group of cloud users: SMBs. For example, Intel launches AppUp, a hybrid cloud service for small business to cater the huge market.
AppUp Small Business Service offers subscription-based hybrid cloud computing (a combo of private cloud computing and public cloud computing) service allows small businesses to keep their important data on-premise (private) while doing their business in the cloud (public) – so, no additional on-premise hardware or software required.
The hybrid cloud computing is better secured and more flexible than adopting private cloud or public cloud only. You can learn more about hybrid, private and public cloud computing from Wikipedia.
So – hang on tight; it’s gonna be a rough but fun ride in cloud computing integration!
