The cloud fascinates small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as it potentially brings multiple benefits when implemented the right way. In term of cloud hosting, however, SMEs are still reluctant to add it in their IT mix.
This cloud hosting trend is revealed in Rackspace’s Cloud (Hosting) Awareness Survey released in January 2009. Sure, it’s almost been two years after the release of the survey finding, but I suspect the trend is pretty much aligned with what I observe.
Some interesting findings from the Rackspace survey
Cloud hosting? What is that?
73 percent of US and 67 percent of UK small businesses are not familiar with the term “cloud hosting.” However, more than half of medium business respondents say they are familiar with it.
Small businesses are not interested in cloud hosting, but medium businesses are willing to give it a shot
57 percent of US and 59 percent of UK small business respondents say they have no plans in cloud hosting adoption. The mid-sized respondents, in the other hand, inclined to give cloud hosting a shot in the near future – 55 percent of US and 42 percent of UK say so.
SMEs have no idea how cloud hosting can help them
The majority of SMEs say that they don’t really know how cloud hosting can make a difference toward their businesses.
Cloud hosting is not considered as an improvement to the existing hosting solutions
28 percent of US small business respondents say that they don’t feel the need to adopt cloud hosting. Another 28 percent of US small business respondents consider cloud hosting cost is a turn-off. UK respondents voice similar concern, with an emphasis on the “uselessness” of cloud hosting (34 percent.)
Medium-sized businesses also think the same way small business respondents do – 31 percent of US medium-sized businesses think that cloud hosting is not offering any added values, while 22 percent of them are not really fancy toward the costs. UK’s medium-sized businesses also consider cost and questionable cloud hosting benefits as a couple of their main concerns (at 18 percent each.) Interestingly, UK medium-sized businesses consider security and compliance as the main reason not to adopt cloud hosting.
Cloud hosting – no future?
Indeed, there is a long way to go for cloud hosting to get the well-deserved welcome. Nevertheless, I am optimistic about the future of cloud hosting. Rackspace, despite the not-so-positive survey results, proclaimed that they are committed to the cloud and has launched Rackspace Cloud to explore the lucrative cloud hosting market.
I am with SiteCloud since their launch date and am impressed by their service quality. In my case, cloud hosting helps my sites to load faster and protect them from sudden surge of traffic – no more excessive CPU usage suspension by non-cloud-based shared hosting providers.
Please have your say – do you think that cloud hosting can offer businesses an edge?
