As cloud technologies mature and awareness of their benefits improves, more organisations in the United States and Europe are deploying cloud solutions to reduce IT costs and optimise operations. U.S. companies are ahead of their European counterparts in terms of cloud uptake due to greater technology exposure as well as better macro-economic conditions. Similarly, large enterprises are embracing cloud technologies more rapidly than medium and small businesses owing to the need to optimise their larger, more complex communications infrastructure.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Future of Cloud Computing Technologies in Enterprises in the United States and Europe, finds that nearly 6 out of 10 cloud users (57 percent) are identified as ‘cloud reliant’, while 43 percent remain ‘cloud lagging’ or with an unfavourable view of the cloud. About 70 percent of U.S. and 56 percent of European respondents currently using cloud technologies find these solutions to be highly effective, indicating that exposure to these technologies can lead to wider adoption.

“The majority of cloud-reliant users are in the United States, particularly in manufacturing, and in businesses of 20 to 500 employees, and businesses of over 10,000 employees,” said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Karolina Olszewska. “In the future, however, the IT decision makers in the United States, the government vertical sector and small businesses are expected to show the most marked increase in cloud technology adoption”

More than half of the surveyed businesses in the United States and Europe have already moved 50 percent or more of their enterprise communications solutions to the cloud. Within the next three years, almost a quarter is likely to migrate 76 percent or more of their communications solutions to the cloud.

In both regions, email servers and collaborative apps top the list of enterprise communication solutions shifted to the cloud. However, only 27 percent of cloud users have moved their telephony systems to the cloud. Among those solutions yet to make the change, collaborative apps offer the highest scope for growth.

“The share of remote and mobile workers is expected to increase over the next three years and change business technology requirements,” concluded Olszewska. “The cost impact of supporting these new business needs will be felt more intensely by IT decision-makers in the United States than those in Europe.”

If you are interested in more information on this study, please send an e-mail to Edyta Grabowska, Corporate Communications, at , with your full name, company name, job title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state and country.

Future of Cloud Computing Technologies in Enterprises in the United States and Europe is a Customer Research study part of the Conferencing & Collaboration (http://www.conferencing.frost.com) Growth Partnership Service program. The study, a Web-based survey of 1,028 IT decision-makers working in businesses across the United States and Europe, measures the current use of and future decision-making behaviour toward IT, specifically cloud computing technologies.