The proliferation of hackers, natural disasters and unstable market conditions are all significant drivers for small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. to seek backup/storage for their company's data and email in the cloud, according to new research.
Pressure to reduce costs, improve flexibility, and maintain privacy of sensitive data also lures SMBs to invest in cloud storage.
Furthermore, for mobile SMB employees, cloud storage is an attractive tool for backing-up and storing data while on the go. 31 percent of the one million U.S. SMBs using hosted storage have mobile employees. The market for hosted storage will increase by 11 percent yearly (CAGR) through 2015, to $270 million.
Comment from Nichelle Grannum, Survey Research Analyst at AMI: Many U.S. SMBs are moving to the cloud to enhance existing packaged applications, such as CRM databases. Cloud storage provides these companies with the latest storage technology realizing a significant reduction in IT overhead due to decreased investment in physical storage devices on their premises. Hosted storage also allows companies to subscribe based on their storage capacity requirements and desired backup schedule, coupled with the benefit of a flexible payment schedule. Since companies need only to pay for the storage they actually use, hosting costs can be tightly controlled. Responsibility for storage maintenance tasks, such as backup, data replication, and storage software updates are entrusted to the service provider, allowing SMBs to focus on their core business.
For cloud storage U.S. SMBs prefer private servers as opposed to public or hybrid ones.
Company data is constantly changing and growing in volume, thus moving storage to the cloud gives companies greater storage capacity and flexibility at a lower cost. With the influx of smartphones and tablets, cloud storage will become increasingly more critical in providing an easily accessible, yet secure place to backup and retrieve company data.
About the study: AMI's 2011 U.S. SMB Cloud Playbook -- Strategic and Tactical GTM Planning Guide provides a tactical framework for architecting cloud-based services offerings to meet the growing demand for cloud services "bundles" and a perspective on cloud-related dynamics shaping up in the SMB space.
Contact: http://www.ami-partners.com
No comments:
Post a Comment