Survey says SMBs uncertain about cloud

BANGALORE, INDIA: A survey found that IT professionals at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are not quite ready to put their faith in cloud-based technology.

The study, commissioned by Verio - a web hosting provider - showed that more than 75 per cent of respondents are uncertain if they will adopt cloud solution in the near future, according to a news report by CloudITPro.

“SMB decision-makers wear many hats. One day they may be managing human resource matters and next they are making updates to their website. Emerging technologies always seem to have some barrier to adoption, and for SMB decision makers who aren’t exclusively focused on IT, implementing a technology like cloud can be daunting,” said Mitch Merrifield, senior director of managed computing solutions for Verio.

Just 20 per cent of decision makers said they were likely or very likely to implement a cloud computing solution in the next twelve months, while almost 10 per cent were likely or very likely to implement in the next three months.

Still, 21 per cent cited the ability to share resources and 20 per cent cited on-demand resources as important.

“SMBs need to keep in mind that their concerns about cloud are similar to those general concerns with managing their overall online presence: Is my data secure? Is there a chance I will experience an outage? Am I operating as efficiently as I can?” Merrifield said.

“All of these questions have clear answers, and they might be surprised by the response they receive. The industry as a whole simply needs to educate SMBs about the benefits, specific to them, for implementing a cloud solution.”

Merrifield believes education will change the mindset. “With increased knowledge, SMBs will better understand how to utilize cloud to their benefit. Helping SMBs truly understand the best paths to success with cloud offerings, and other hosted IT solutions, will begin driving further adoption in this segment, ” he said.