More than half of U.S. organizations embracing cloud: study

Fifty-eight per cent of surveyed organizations in the United States are embracing cloud, using public or private cloud for more than one or two small applications or workloads, up from 24% 14 months ago, according to a new survey from the International Data Corporation (IDC).

The multi-client study, titled CloudView 2016, noted that despite the findings that 58% of all organizations surveyed are embracing cloud, only 5% of respondents believe that they have an “optimized” cloud strategy. The study, released on Monday, had 6,159 respondents from 31 countries, noted a statement from IDC, a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets.

The study covers a wide range of questions around cloud, including public and private cloud adoption and interest; IT spending on cloud and non-cloud workloads; pace of migration to the cloud by application type; and cloud maturity. The top drivers of cloud adoption are around improving resource utilization and staff productivity, the survey found.

Other key findings included:

• Respondents expect to increase their cloud spending by approximately 44% over the next two years;

• Over 70% of heavy cloud users are thinking in terms of a “hybrid” cloud strategy; and

• Over 40% of heavy cloud users plan to spend money on open source and standards projects.

“Beyond adoption and maturity, a series of questions on ‘why are’ or ‘why aren’t’ respondents moving more workloads to the cloud makes up a key part of the study,” said Ben McGrath, senior research analyst of SaaS (software as a service) and business models at IDC, in the statement. “Improving staff productivity remains a key driver, but in comparison to previous years’ studies, more respondents are identifying business-related metrics as a key driver of cloud adoption, such as improved business agility and more support for business-related programs.”

Robert Mahowald, group vice president of applications and cloud business models at IDC, added that when examining the shift in IT spending over the next two years, “we see a strong desire to move applications and workloads off premises and have them managed by a cloud provider.”