Nearly 28 pct American firms using cloud computing

Illinois-based computer hardware and software supplier CDW LLC, in a poll conducted last month, confirmed that nearly 28 percent of all US organizations are using cloud computing and another 73 percent reported that their first access to cloud was through a single cloud application, a report said.

The poll, which was the first Cloud Computing Tracking Poll, was conducted as an assessment of the current and future use of cloud computing by business organizations, government offices, education and healthcare which was based on a survey of nearly 1,200 IT professionals.

About 84 percent of the organizations said that they have already engaged at least one cloud application, while others are not aware if they are a part of the users who are working with cloud.

Many organizations are carefully – and selectively – moving into cloud computing, as well they should, because it represents a significant shift in how computing resources are provided and managed,” said David Cottingham, senior director, CDW. “With thoughtful planning, organizations can realize benefits that align directly with their organizational goals: consolidated IT infrastructure, reduced IT energy and capital costs, and ‘anywhere’ access to documents and applications.

The company said that applications most frequently operated in the cloud are service applications such as email which has about 50 percent of cloud users, file storage has 39 percent users, web and video conferencing has 36 and 32 percent respectively, and 34 percent of the users are the ones conducting online learning programs.

Among current cloud users, 84 percent said they cut application costs by shifting to the cloud. On an average, cloud users said, they save 21 percent annually on those applications which were moved to the cloud.

The potential to cut costs while maintaining or even enhancing computing capabilities for end users presents a compelling case for investment in cloud computing,” Cottingham said. “The fact that even current cloud users anticipate spending just a third of their IT budget on cloud computing within five years suggests that before wide-scale implementation, IT managers are taking a hard look at their IT governance, architecture, security and other prerequisites for cloud computing, in order to ensure that their implementations are successful.

The current survey included 150 individuals from each industry who identified themselves as familiar with their organization’s use of, or plans for cloud computing, a report on the CDW website said.