Companies using CLOUD services will triple in 5 years or less

Paid cloud services will become increasingly popular among small and medium-sized businesses around the world, so much so that the use of these is expected to double in the next five years. For its part, the use of cloud services in general will triple among SMEs by 2017. According to a study presented by Edge Strategies for Microsoft, after interviewing 3,000 SMEs from 13 countries, small businesses have been considerably increasing their interest in cloud computing technology. On the other hand, 59% of companies that already use cloud services for some of their activities have noticed a significant increase in productivity. Among companies that do not use cloud, only 30% gave the same response. Among the advantages perceived by small and medium-sized business executives, we find that 63% of SMEs using cloud services believe they will increase their sales within 12 to 18 months, 50% believe that cloud computing will be more important for their operations, and 58% believe that companies are more competitive if they use the cloud. According to statements by Marco Limena, Vice President of Operator Channels at Microsoft, published in Information Management, the cloud helps SMEs “to compete in the current and changing business environment, spending less time and money on technology and leaving more time to focus on their priorities for growing their businesses. The study also highlights that only 20% of SMEs consider storing their data on a remote server to be less secure than storing them on their own server, and most companies value that companies offering cloud services