Cloud computing employed at one-third of small and medium businesses: study

Survey confirms that small businesses are the most natural place for public cloud adoption.

When talking about public cloud and Software as a Service, the most natural market is small to medium-size businesses. (Defined as companies with fewer than 500 employees). Larger organizations are more likely to have bigger IT departments, and many of their own resources.

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Sure enough, a new survey finds that cloud adoption among SMBs is pretty fast and furious.

Nearly one-third of small to medium-size businesses have adopted cloud computing technology, with medium-sized businesses (42%) showing the highest utilization, a new study from the CompTIA industry trade group finds. Another 35% of all SMBs plan to use the cloud in some form in the next year.

Presumably, they’re talking about accessing public cloud solutions from third party suppliers.

The CompTIA survey found that storage and backup solutions are the most heavily used cloud applications, with 71% of SMBs using the cloud in this way. Email (62%), document management (59%), collaboration (56%) and customer relationship management (53%) are other popular options.

Among SMBs now using cloud computing, 92% of firms say their experience has been “positive or very positive”; and 97% report that their move to the cloud “has produced the desired result, with cost and flexibility most frequently cited as the benefits of a cloud solution.”

In addition, seven out of ten of the SMBs surveyed said they expect to increase their technology spending over the next 12 months, and one-third of the companies surveyed expect to increase their IT budget by 10 percent or more.