Gartner disputes cloud popularity stats
Research and advisory firm Gartner says that claims that most organisations have moved or are moving to cloud email or cloud office systems are not consistent with its own studies.
Gartner estimates that there are currently about 50 million enterprise users of cloud office systems, which represent only 8% of overall office system users (excluding China and India).
The IT research firm, however, predicts that a major shift toward cloud office systems will begin by the first half of 2015 and reach 33% penetration by 2017.
“Despite the hype surrounding migration to the cloud, big differences in movement rates continue, depending on organisations’ size, industry, geography and specific requirements,” said Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner Fellow.
“While 8% of business people were using cloud office systems at the start of 2013, we estimate this number will grow to 695 million users by 2022, to represent 60%.”
Although email remains the world’s primary collaboration tool, others, such as team sites and communities are growing in importance.
Nonetheless, email is typically pivotal in decisions to move — or not move — to cloud office systems. Gartner estimates that by the end of 2014 at least 10% of enterprise email seats will be based on a cloud or software-as-a-service model. This figure will rise to at least one-third by the end of 2017, the advisory group says.
In addition, there has been a substantial expansion in the number of devices people use to access cloud office systems in recent years. In 2007, when the cloud office system market first appeared, typical individual users would employ just one device to access their enterprise’s office systems, Gartner says.
In 2013, that number has soared. Gartner estimates the typical knowledge worker now employs up to four devices — for example, mobile phone, media tablet, personal PC and enterprise PC — to access their organisation’s office system capabilities in a single week.
This explosion in the number of devices per user could drive some organisations to cloud office systems as they can reduce the IT burden of software installation, maintenance and upgrades of locally installed office software, Gartner says.
Current levels of adoption vary significantly by industry. Organisations in industries at the leading edge, such as higher education, discrete manufacturing, retail and hospitality, are significantly more likely to adopt cloud-based office systems at present, the IT research firm said.
Those in the intelligence and defence sectors, and in heavily regulated parts of the financial services and healthcare industries, are among the least likely to be early adopters.
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