Research Shows Companies Worldwide are Embracing the Cloud

Communications and collaboration solutions company Esna has compiled some interesting statistics on cloud computing adoption, showing just how entrenched it has become in the technology realm. The company, which specializes in unified communications innovations, compiled statistics from a variety of research reports and surveys to show just how common the cloud has become in the enterprise world.

There are three compelling reasons why enterprises adopt cloud computing applications, according to IT and business decision makers. These types of apps make collaboration easier, they support a variety of business needs, and they provide proven results. And the adoption statistics back this up, with 45 percent of global enterprises claiming they are currently running production-level cloud computing apps. An additional 32 percent of enterprises have some type of formal cloud computing plan that is part of their larger IT and business strategy.

When breaking those global numbers down, 29 percent of North American enterprises are in the discovery and evaluation phase of cloud computing, while 27 percent of European organizations are in this phase. Interestingly, South America leads the way in cloud computing for new business projects, with 23 percent of enterprises relying on cloud computing for new projects. Europe comes in next at 19 percent of companies, with 18 percent of North American enterprises and 17 percent of Asian organization utilizing the cloud for new projects.

Cloud computing users have a lot of faith in their apps, with 87 percent of enterprise users professing they would recommend the cloud to peers or colleagues. And 58 percent of users selectively target new applications for the cloud, while 39 percent claimed that enterprise applications will be an entrenched part of their cloud computing environment within the next two years.

Other interesting findings include research showing that user spending on cloud services could top $180 billion by 2015, and that half of the U.S. government has moved to the cloud. Of those queried, 82 percent of companies reported they saved money by migrating to the cloud, while 80 percent of cloud adopters experienced improvements in their organizations within six months of migrating to the cloud.