Cloud Computing awareness low amongst Asian organisations
ConvergenceAsia staff
03/12/2009

Overall awareness of Cloud Computing in the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan) is still relatively low, with only 46 per cent of survey respondents in the region having familiarity with the concept, says the latest report, “Cloud Computing in Asia Pacific – Market Evolution and Implications”, from Springboard Research.

While awareness is low, Cloud Computing will continue to drive further demand for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) as well as further broadening the types of services available via the on-demand model. Springboard Research defines Cloud Computing as a collection of IT-enabled resources and capabilities that can be delivered via the Internet as a service. The report looks across all layers of the Cloud, including not only Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), but also Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).

“Cloud Computing is the next phase in the delivery and consumption of IT-enabled services and a major evolutionary step in the maturing of the IT industry,” said Michael Barnes, Vice President, and Software Research.

“It provides an opportunity for organisations in Asia Pacific to leapfrog competitors in other regions. We expect organisations across Asia Pacific to embrace Cloud Computing as a way to drive greater standardisation at the IT infrastructure level while simultaneously lowering the resources required to leverage technology solutions for business benefits,” Barnes added.

Springboard noted that awareness and understanding of Cloud Computing remains limited in the region, particularly the relevance for strategic business and IT priorities. Two-thirds of organisations across the region currently find cloud computing “not-relevant” for their organisations. Among the organisations that are aware of the concept, 78 per cent have not yet deployed any Cloud-based applications.

SaaS is an exception to the region-wide lack of Cloud awareness. This is substantiated by a key finding from the Springboard report which revealed that 95 per cent of Asian organisations are familiar with SaaS whereas less than half the organisations surveyed were familiar with Cloud Computing. SaaS based applications (such as CRM and ERP), Storage, Web conferencing and Email are the most popular applications among Cloud users and constitute the bulk of Cloud-related spending.

“For the Cloud vendors, establishing and maintaining trusted relationships is critical to overall market growth. In fact, delivering strong support is even more important in the still nascent Cloud Computing market as it is needed to overcome the early skepticism, uncertainty and doubts that characterise this market,” advised Barnes.

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