Cathriona Hallahan, managing director, Microsoft Ireland, and Richard Bruton, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, at the launch of the findings of the Microsoft/Amárach Cloud Index at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin
More organisations across Ireland are implementing cloud computing, in particular, companies with five to 50 employees, the second annual Microsoft/Amárach Cloud Index reveals.
Fifty-three per cent of organisations with five to 50 staff members are now using the cloud, reflecting a 21pc increase from last year.
The index focuses on tracking the adoption of cloud computing amongst organisations in both the public and private sectors in Ireland.
This year’s Microsoft/Amárach Cloud Index stands at 3.6 out of 10, up from 3.2 last year. This is based on the mean score for all responses to a question relating to those organisations’ current adoption of cloud computing.
Reasons for cloud adoption
Cost cutting remains organisations’ main reason for switching to the cloud, as well as workforce mobility, efficiency and ease of maintenance.
The index also reveals that most (54pc) of IT decision makers at private and public-sector organisations have deployed cloud solutions in their organisations, up from 37pc last year.
An even greater percentage – 64pc – of respondents who have adopted cloud computing said the technology had met their expectations.
Sixty-seven per cent of respondents said cloud computing could help them address the external and business challenges they are facing, up from 55pc in 2012.
Among those who haven’t deployed the cloud in their organisations, 57pc of IT decision makers cited security as a concern in cloud adoption, while 29pc cited privacy concerns, compared to last year’s findings of 39pc and 25pc on those concerns, respectively.
Four out of 10 respondents, however, intend to engage in a cloud pilot programme within the next nine months, and 48pc see the cloud as a business imperative, rather than simply as an IT solution.
National Cloud Week 2013
Cathriona Hallahan, managing director, Microsoft Ireland, attended this morning’s Microsoft Business Leaders’ Summit at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, held during National Cloud Week 2013.
The event saw the launch of the Microsoft/Amárach Cloud Index.
“There are many positives that we can take from the index,” Hallahan said. “We can see that an encouraging 40pc of those who haven’t adopted the cloud yet are planning to pilot it in areas such as email and document storage.
“We look forward to continuing to work with organisations throughout the country to help move Ireland further into the cloud,” she added.
Hallahan also recognised the Government’s work in prioritising cloud as a central tenet of its economic recovery efforts.
“The prioritisation of cloud in the Action Plan for Jobs document published earlier this year reinforces the contribution that cloud can make to the job-creation priority,” Hallahan said.
