Microsoft SMB Study Reveals Optimistic Outlook for Cloud Services

Microsoft has released their latest study regarding cloud computing. The “SMB Cloud Adoption Study 2011” focuses on the impact of cloud computing on small and midsize businesses (SMBs) over the next three years.

The research paints an optimistic picture for hosting service providers with the expectation that 39 percent of SMBs will be paying for cloud services within the next three years. Collaboration, data storage and backup, and business-class email will be some of the key areas in demand by SMBs. Furthermore, the study shows that cloud services will be able to provide the required services for both SMBs expecting to rapidly grow in the next three years (requiring a scalable environment) and SMBs focused solely on profitability (seeking cost-effective, efficient solutions).

Marco Limena, VP of Microsoft’s Business Channels, Worldwide Communications Sector emphasized that SMBs will still operate within a hybrid model gradually increasing their cloud computing usage. As their current IT operations become outdated, cloud computing will rapidly grow and hosting service providers “should consider the appropriate sales, delivery and support models to target larger SMB customers that are more likely to pay for cloud services.”

Finally, the study revealed that there is an ever growing demand by larger, growth focused SMBs for software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). This will provide an opportunity for hosting providers to acquire and retain high-value customers in a highly competitive cloud computing market.

View Press Release: Microsoft PressPass