Cloud Inches Forward; Where’s the PaaS?
April 5, 2012
As we inch toward the next Cloud Expo in New York, the world inches toward cloud computing. The progress has an inevitability to it, as it seems just a matter of time for the day when "computing" equals cloud computing. The findings of the recent "IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Study, January 2012."
The study found that 57% of companies surveyed have at least one app or a portion of its infrastructure in the cloud, with anticipated budgets toward cloud computing this year of $300,00+ among smaller companies and $2.55 million among companies with more than 1,000 employees…
The five-year view seemed a little more muted, with 27% of companies saying they’d have all of their apps in the cloud, and 35% saying "only a few selected IT operations" will be so. Two-thirds of the 1,650 respondents said cloud is either a high priority or a priority right now.
The biz/IT disconnect is reflected somewhat in this survey as well: 25% of business-side respondents said cloud investments play a critical role in shaping business strategy, with 63% saying they played either a critical role or some role. The respective numbers from the IT side here are 17% and 51%. Two-thirds of all respondents allege that cloud is an "enabler of innovation" for their businesses.
Moving costs from CAPEX to OPEX is often cited as a key reason to adopt cloud computing with an enterprise. This survey confirms that, with 78% mentioned CAPEX savings as very important or somewhat important. Nevertheless, this issue finishes 7th on the list of top drivers, behind enabling business continuity (at 84%), deployment speed, flexibility, improving customer support/services, reducing resource waste, and enabling innovation.
Respondents from the larger companies said 8% of their budgets will be devoted to SaaS this year, with 7% toward IaaS, and 5% toward PaaS. My personal view would be concern over the latter number; it seems the ability to conceive, develop, and test apps in the cloud is cloud’s most attractive feature.
Maybe I talk to geeks too much, but PaaS seems to be the place where innovation will be born. Let’s double that percentage to 10%, folks!