Cloud uptake grows in Asia-Pacific

Cloud computing momentum has accelerated across the region, especially in Southeast Asia where more businesses are carrying out deployment plans this year, according to findings of a new study.

Released Tuesday, the report from Springboard Research indicated that 45 percent of organizations in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, had adopted or were planning cloud initiatives, up from 22 percent in 2009. Over 470 CIOs, IT managers and line of business managers were interviewed in May for this year's study.

Michael Barnes, Springboard's vice president of software and Asia-Pacific research, said in an e-mail that cloud adoption was most significant in Australia and New Zealand, where 24 percent of those surveyed said their organizations already had in place cloud implementations. In contrast, 14 percent of respondents said the same last year.

Southeast Asian markets, on the other hand, led the region in terms of making plans to move to the cloud, with 34 percent of respondents indicating they would roll out cloud initiatives in future, he added. This was double the 17 percent recorded in 2009.

Cost was still the main driver for cloud uptake in the region, according to Sanchit Vir Gogia, Springboard's associate research manager for software.

"Asia-Pacific organizations are particularly keen to exploit the cost-saving potential of cloud solutions, with 49 percent viewing cloud as primarily a cost-saving measure, versus only 23 percent who mainly view [it] as a strategic investment," he said in a Springboard statement.

Barnes added that security remained a key worry for respondents across the region with regard to cloud computing, outweighing concerns such as availability and performance as well as data privacy.

SMBs "aggressive" adopters
The report also highlighted that small and midsize businesses (SMBs) were the most "aggressive" adopters of cloud computing in the region. In particular, 54 percent of businesses with between 100 and 299 employees indicated they were currently on the cloud or had plans to do so.

Among large organizations, which Springboard defined as having over 1,000 employees, 36 percent were engaged in or planned to adopt cloud initiatives.

Private clouds were favored by the region's organizations, with 34 percent indicating they were likely to use or consider an internal cloud, compared with 14 percent for public clouds. India, said Barnes, was the only exception--21 percent of respondents opted for public cloud while 17 percent said they would use a private cloud.

Enterprise applications were the most widely-used cloud technologies within the region, according to the report. CRM (customer relationship management), which Springboard said is currently the largest individual software-as-a-service (SaaS) market in the Asia-Pacific region, accounts for the majority of enterprise cloud applications deployed.

The study also revealed that Google was the dominant vendor in terms of both cloud mindshare and user adoption plans. However, Springboard noted that both IBM and Microsoft have made strong gains in cloud-related mindshare over the last 12 months.