When you think of cloud do you think of large enterprise?
Klaus Holse Andersen , VP Western Europe for Microsoft, wants you to know that “Size doesn’t matter anymore, the over-riding lesson we are learning worldwide is that a business that gets ahead of the curve is a smart one, not necessarily a big one.”
In fact, cloud arms the little guy with enterprise tools that he couldn't afford before. Tools that they can use to compete with bigger companies on a more level playing field...
Andersen makes this point: “The technology curve at present is all about the cloud and the possibilities it brings... SMBs can now exploit the economies of scale offered by cloud computing, giving them affordable access to sophisticated computing resources previously available only to large companies. It’s all about increasing productivity by becoming as ‘elastic’ as possible as an organization, without incurring dramatic costs. Cloud computing is up to 40X more cost-effective for a SMB, compared to the alternative of running its own IT system as recent research shows.”
According to Microsoft Communications Sector’s annual global SMB Cloud Adoption Study findings, 39% of SMBs expect to be paying for one or more cloud services within three years, up from today's 29%. On average, those using paid cloud services will be using 3.4 services, which is an increase from 2.0 services today.
When looking at the global SME bracket, Microsoft sees a clear trend towards a hybrid infrastructure model: In three years 43% of workloads will become paid cloud services, 28% will remain on-premise, and 29% will be free or bundled with other services.
Andersen named a few SMEs who have already gained advantages from the cloud: the Swedish Red Cross, the Belgium-based sport service provider Chronorace, as well as Dutch fashion online community JUSTPROUD.
Go Microsoft Communications Sector’s annual global SMB Cloud Adoption Study
