Some Pain, But Plenty to Gain, from Cloud Deployments: Survey

Whoever is writing the marketing materials at Cisco these days has a sense of humor.

For a company that’s just starting out, it makes sense to automate as many basic processes as you can and focus on the things that will make you a success. That’s where the cloud might help. An overwhelming number of small businesses report that cloud (internet-based) services save them time and money – just under 90%, according to a recent survey by Rackspace Hosting, Manchester Business School and Vanson Bourne. And half claim that such cloud computing services helped them grow their businesses.

For a company that’s just starting out, it makes sense to automate as many basic processes as you can and focus on the things that will make you a success. That’s where the cloud might help. An overwhelming number of small businesses report that cloud (internet-based) services save them time and money – just under 90%, according to a recent survey by Rackspace Hosting, Manchester Business School and Vanson Bourne. And half claim that such cloud computing services helped them grow their businesses.

If only experience could be bottled and sold, rather than having to be earned. Actually, cloud computing is, in a way, the bottling and packaging of information technology experience. But still, even with something so nicely pre-packaged as cloud, there is still a learning curve that must be climbed. The good news is that cloud has been around long enough that there is now a class of seasoned veterans who can show the way.

What's the big promise constantly being made about cloud computing? Cost savings, cost savings, cost savings. Cloud, under construction everywhere you look. Photo: Joe McKendrick But the economics of cloud computing can be a big question mark, especially when it comes to long-term cloud subscription engagements versus larger, one-time investments  in packages. [...]

Cloud computing just isn?t as scary as it once was to companies and their CIOs. A new survey of 785 companies finds a meager 3% considering it to be too risky ? down from 11% last year. Only 12% say the cloud platform is too immature, and that?s down from 26% a year ago. Furthermore, ...

Companies are investing heavily in cloud computing, a new survey of 1,650 IT and business executives shows. On average, they report, more than a third, 34%, of their current IT budgets are now allocated to cloud computing solutions. These are some of the findings of the IDG Study, conducted in January 2012. Most of these ...

Here?s an interesting convergence of two forces within what Gartner calls the 'CSMI Nexus' (cloud, social, mobile, information): computing appears to be a driving force behind cloud adoption in enterprises.?? In fact, a new survey from CSC cites mobile to be even more of a driver than business agility and cost savings as the reason ...