Cloud computing is a term that has been thrown around a lot this year. At the beginning of the year a Gartner survey found that cloud computing was ranked as number two in the top 10 technologies which must be implemented in the next year. The report was quoted as saying, "Business expectations are shifting from a focus on greater cost-based efficiencies, to achieving better results based on enterprise and IT productivity. These productivity gains will come from collaborative and innovative solutions that take advantage of the new “lighter-weight” services-based and social media technologies, including virtualization, cloud computing and Web 2.0 social computing."
But now a new Gartner survey has found that despite the move to cloud computing being inevitable in the future, more companies are wary about the risks of moving into the cloud that previously thought.
The research firm found that 70 percent of the companies surveyed with 1,000 or more staff, have not yet developed a cloud initiative.
Concerns over cloud computing
Like anything that you don’t know much about, cloud computing can easily scare those who don’t know much about it.
Gartner found that companies were worried about losing control of their information. The survey found that security concerns were the main worry as they were concerned about having information stored somewhere that is out of their control was a main factor. While another worry was that there is no compliance reporting or audit trails once information is stored in the cloud.
Previous research found that businesses weren’t taking up hosted or managed services because either their needs were met by their existing in-house infrastructure, or that the cloud service was too expensive. A poll conducted by the developer GFI Software in May found that while 86 percent of businesses employing between 100 and 249 people use IT services hosted off-site or managed by a third party, such services were used by just 39 percent of companies with less than 10 employees.
Ben Pring, research vice president at Gartner. said that, although interest in cloud computing has grown, many enterprises still have strong concerns about the idea of cloud computing and cloud-computing products as well as cloud services. Security is primary among these, while other concerns include availability of service, vendor viability and maturity.
IDC president and chief executive Kirk Campbell has said, "Cloud computing offers businesses of all sizes an unparalleled opportunity to reduce the complexity of their IT systems while simultaneously reining in their IT costs."
It's been suggested that the use of cloud computing could save a business up to 50 percent when compared to the costs of a traditional enterprise platform.
But Ross Tisnovsky, vice president of research at Everest, said that companies should ensure they choose a reliable vendor to get the most out of the technology.
"While cloud services offer a strong business case over a traditional enterprise setup, the buyer's cloud adoption strategy should not be based on cost savings alone," he advised.
Will the cloud computing market grow?
In April, it was predicted that the UK would spend over £1 billion on cloud computing by 2012. It was predicted that more consumers and businesses would subscribe to web-based services, such as Google Apps.
In the UK, cloud-based services currently account for around 7.5 percent of the £8 billion software market, according to research company TechMarketView.
Despite the latest survey from Garner warning that companies are reluctant to move into the cloud, it’s estimated that it’s not just the market in the UK which is growing, as the cloud computing market itself is expected to benefit substantially over the next few years. Last year cloud computing was a $58.6 billion industry, but by 2014, according to Gartner research it will be worth more than $148.8 billion. Over the next five years, companies themselves will invest $112 billion in the cloud.
"We are seeing an acceleration of adoption of cloud computing and cloud services among enterprises and an explosion of supply-side activity as technology providers maneuver to exploit the growing commercial opportunity," said Mr. Pring.
Daryl Plummer, managing VP and Gartner Fellow, says among the benefits of moving to cloud computing is the fact that companies do not need to invest in infrastructure or software. By investing in the cloud, it will allow firms to retire IT equipment. “It's not an investment opportunity to buy technology.”
CIOs can’t ignore cloud computing
Despite businesses in general being wary over cloud computing, the use of it is spreading at a considerable rate. CIOs can’t ignore the move to cloud computing when staff at their companies are already making use of cloud computing with the likes of using a diary online or using an application such as Google Docs in order to save taking up valuable hard drive space, or even on a personal level by storing photo’s on their social networking pages.
With the likes of Amazon and IBM betting big on cloud computing, it looks like its here to stay, so CIOs better start their research.
The US share of the worldwide cloud services market was 60 percent in 2009 and will be 58 percent in 2010, but by 2014, this will be 50 percent as other countries and regions begin to adopt cloud services. Western Europe is expected to account for 23.8 percent of the cloud services market in 2010, and Japan will represent 10 percent. In 2014, the UK is forecast to account for 29 percent of the market, while Japan will represent 12 percent of cloud services revenue.
Jodie Humphries - I am capable of writing about many subjects, but my main passion is writing about music as it involves two things I love: writing and ...
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