More Cloud education needed for SMBs in 2013, says Rise

A lack of education means SMBs are at least a year away from embracing Cloud technology fully according James Henigan, product and IT services director at Cloud and hosted services provider, Rise.
By: Spreckley partners
 
Nov. 9, 2012 - PRLog -- A lack of education means SMBs are at least a year away from embracing Cloud technology fully according James Henigan, product and IT services director at Cloud and hosted services provider, Rise. He also suggested that Cloud adoption, amongst SMBs, is delayed by numerous challenges such as the scale and breadth of the education needed to drive demand and reluctance to disturb existing business models until more evidence is generated about the successful path to follow.

“2012 will be remembered for the impact Cloud made in certain sectors. If you look back to 2011, a lot of uncertainty still existed amongst enterprises and the mid markets looking to migrate their data into the Cloud. Is my data safe? Where is it stored? Do you still have control? Were all common questions.

“Education played a big part in answering these and when you look back on 2012, Cloud adoption has never been higher, with research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) identifying that Cloud adoption has increased by 27 per cent amongst first-time users in the past 18 months. However, as we prepare to embrace 2013 is it fair to say everyone is onboard with Cloud technology? Well quite frankly, the answer is no.

“While strides have been made across the entire enterprise and mid-market community, there are those, notably SMBs, who still struggle with the concept of Cloud computing.

“A lot of enterprises have huge IT departments containing a vast array of skills, knowledge and experience within IT technology, making the transition to the Cloud more informed and much smoother. The very nature of SMBs means decision makers might not be as educated on subjects like technology – indeed almost 70 per cent of SMB end-users are nontechnical. Their understanding and knowledge around technology and advancements can be very limited.”

Henigan continues: “The opportunity this presents the channel is huge. SMBs are screaming out for education and support around Cloud adoption and the channel is ideally placed to deliver this.

“The lack of education surrounding adoption means end customers are unable to fully understand the benefits of migrating data to the Cloud. The knock on effect of this means the channel is not seeing the demand it needs to embrace and promote Cloud services and is therefore reluctant to change anything in their own business model to generate it. It has become a waiting game of who will show their hand first and be responsible for capitalising on this disruptive change.”

Henigan concluded: “We expect this to continue in 2013, with the LARs and Distributors supported by the larger and global vendors all aiding breadth education. However it will take time.”

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About Rise


Rise is the channel sales division of Fasthosts Internet Group. Based in Gloucester UK, Rise provides Cloud Computing and hosted IT services to a variety of customers through its channel partners and partner proposition of DataCenter on Demand™ which is a highly flexible, scalable and on-demand infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) product portfolio allowing for seamless integration of standalone and hybrid cloud solutions.

Rise host these services from their UK datacenters and provide infrastructure support 24/7/365. In recognition of its commitment to delivering products and services for outstanding adoption and application of innovation, Rise was named 2011 winner of The Global Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year Award, at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Awards, as well as being awarded the Microsoft Hyper-V Cloud Partner of the year in March 2011. For more information, please see: http://www.rise.co/

Press contacts:

Andrew Chatterton/ Nick Bird

Spreckley Partners Ltd

Tel: +44 (0) 207 388 9988

Email: rise@spreckley.co.uk
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