Although Cloud Computing remains consistently in the news I think it's essential to point out some personal observations concerning Cloud adoption.
1. Who are the early adopters of Cloud applications?
Startups and small businesses setting up their first e-mail accounts and collaboration apps seem to be the early adopters. The reasons are fairly obvious, it's usually free and also it's a simple process. If you're a new business and are not dealing with moving large amounts of data the setup process is simple.
2. Who will be the next wave of adopters?
The adoption of the Cloud by the Government will be the next big wave after getting this green light. As the Great Recession carries on government entities are looking to save money. We've already seen the State of Kentucky (Microsoft Live) and the City of Los Angeles (Google) both move to Government Clouds. At this point I'd say it's only a matter of time with the two biggest factors slowing adoption being security and money.
3. The bits and pieces of enterprise adoption.
Although larger businesses have been adopting the Cloud it's been piece by piece. We're not seeing full-on adoption by large companies. The perfect example is SalesForce. Companies feel comfortable with their CRM data in the Cloud but may not feel safe with Cloud e-mail. Or in another case it may be e-mail in the Cloud but not financial data. I think the real key to this will be the use of subscriptions, something we discussed in our post, the Subscription Economy. As larger businesses adopt the Cloud they're going to do it a little bit at a time. By paying for smaller subscriptions they'll be able to test out applications before actually committing large amounts of funds/resources to go all in.
What do you think? Will businesses adopt the Cloud slowly or do you think they're waiting for the right time to go all in? Let us know in the comments below!
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