Even among the 29 percent of small business that use software as a service, not all of them have heard of cloud computing. Forty four percent of the respondents think that cloud computing means subscribing to services such as servers or storage hosted by a third party, and 29 percent think that it means access to applications over the Web.
Techaisle’s survey finds that channel partners are most effective in approaching small businesses regarding cloud computing. Twenty-six percent of small businesses have heard about cloud computing from their channels, while only 13 percent have heard about it from an IT company. Twenty-five percent of small businesses have also heard about cloud computing from blogs/forums and other social media websites.
A tremendous education initiative has to be undertaken by both the channel partners and IT vendors to articulate the use of cloud computing, according to Techaisle. Small businesses do not generally have IT departments let alone knowledge and focus on cloud computing. Vendors are busy courting large enterprises as they are easily identifiable and have established IT departments, according to a Techaisle company statement.
The above findings were released today based on primary research conducted by Techaisle in the months of May-June 2010, when they surveyed small businesses (1-99 employees) within the U.S., UK, Germany, Italy and Brazil.
Valerie Valentine is senior editor for Information Management. You can follow her on Twitter @ValValentineIM.
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