British businesses are deeply skeptical about the need to adopt cloud computing technology even though nearly seven in ten companies thought that it was going to be an important technology strand in the future.
According to a new survey from the Cloud Industry Forum, one third of businesses thought that a lack of confidence in cloud technology was actually a barrier to adoption. Furthermore, a large proportion of the respondents thought that the hype surrounding cloud computing was in itself an additional handicap that slowed down its adoption.
However, the importance of the technology was still widely recognized – 69 per cent of those surveyed thought that cloud was going to become increasingly important in the coming years.
In common with most of these surveys, the biggest barrier to adoption was security, with 34 per cent of companies citing it as their main concern. On the other hand, 35 percent of companies looking to cloud plumped for cost savings and reduced complexity as their main reasons for going down the cloud path.
Andy Burton, Chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum and Chief Executive of Fasthosts, stated: “These findings clearly highlight that the hype over the Cloud has yet to die down. As a result many businesses remain somewhat skeptical over the promises that some vendors and suppliers are making. This lack of confidence is clear and yet when asked what would make any selection process easier the overwhelming majority would favour a Code of Practice to help make an informed choice. The advantages of cloud services over on-premise are often well understood, but making a clear choice of service provider is less clear.
