November 9th, 2009
Survey: Cloud confusion among IT could slow enterprise adoption
When it comes to cloud computing, there are a number of people whose definition of it is, well, still in the clouds. What makes that worse is that those people who are still confused by what cloud computing is actual IT professionals, many of whom still see it as “more hype than substance.”
With “cloud computing” still bringing up a number of different definitions and perceptions in the IT community, there are concerns that the adoption of cloud computing technologies among the enterprise may be stalled, according to a survey of IT professionals released today.
A survey commissioned by SaaS email security company Proofpoint found that 40 percent of IT professionals said they were confused by the term while more than half (52 percent) said no. Of the respondents, 33 percent said the believe cloud computing to be more hype than substance while 24 percent “weren’t sure.” In a press release, Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele:
Any great paradigm shift, cloud computing included, will always be accompanied by hype and a fair amount of confusion. So we’re not surprised to see those percentages, even among the power users — IT professionals. There’s still a significant amount of ‘fear, uncertainly and doubt’ surrounding data security and financial payback issues.”
If the IT departments are still confused about the cloud, can you imagine what the feelings are among the executive ranks? The respondents didn’t seem to confident about their leaders’ understanding - with only 24 percent believing that their CEOs could define cloud computing and 59 percent saying their CEOs wouldn’t e able to do it. IT professionals were less confident about their company finance directors, with only 10 percent saying their finance heads could define the cloud.
The respondents were split on their opinions of security in the cloud, with 50 percent believing that they would be at greater risk of having their data compromised or being in violation of government regulations. The survey found that 43 percent believed that cloud computing is less secure than managing things in house while in-house while 26 percent felt otherwise and 31 percent were not sure.
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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