The Hype Was Right on Cloud Computing

CIO — For a few years now, everything we’ve heard about cloud has taking everything into consideration been hype. It’ll be the then transformational leap for research, the pundits said. It will cut complexity, improve flexibility and make IT more strategic to business, the vendors said. It’s going to be so great when it gets here, the marketers said.

What a pleasant surprise

But what a pleasant surprise: Cloud computing actually did arrive. Actual adoption is in accordance with way everywhere, anyway to some degree.

Small-to-midsize businesses spend larger chunks of their IT budget on cloud, averaging 20 percent for companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. Larger enterprises are earmarking around 15 percent of their IT budget for cloud.

The top two business drivers for cloud adoption are business continuity and greater flexibility to ramp up or down with market demand. Least important? Saving on capital expenditures.