
The 451 Group’s William Fellows in a “Cloud Outlook 2010” Webcast, says that 57% of spending on cloud computing is done in the U.S., 31% in Europe and 12% in Asia. But when it comes to the adoption of infrastructure as a service, the way to leap the furthest into cloud computing by using Amazon’s EC2 or Rackspace, 93% of that spending is done in the U.S., 6% in Europe and 1% in Asia.
I asked them about the European cloud market and what kind of traction they are seeing in the market. Christoph told me that they are finding it difficult to convince customers to move their assets to cloud. He told me that they have to put considerable efforts to educate customers about the benefits of cloud computing. In his opinion, European market is lagging behind US market by at least a year on cloud adoption.
Good post Krish, I'm glad someone else is trying to raise the flag for those outside the US.
I think this is a mutli-dimensional issue. For instance..I think that the recession has driven cloud adoption…map where recession is felt the most…Cloud is a outsource substitute, and you tend to outsource for cost reasons
I also think companies (big companies) don't like large geographic dislocation from their providers… so where you have cloud investment and assets, you have cloud adoption.. this is exacerbated (rightly or wrongly) by data sovereignty concerns etc… those old chestnuts
Finally i think that employment law / culture has issues. If you believe cloud is a form of outsourcing, then it typically leads to job losses. my guess is that ANZ and european nations have stronger worker protection…
As one of those working in NZ to explain, educate and ultimately re-sell "cloud" services I would agree with Ben. I would also add that the majority of traditional IT companies in NZ struggle with understanding it themselves (it's us new ones that are forging the way). Without the understanding themselves they don't see it as an alternative to offer their clients.
Another part of that is that many traditional IT companies are struggling with the commercials – how can they make $$$ and still keep their cost base. Tough.
Here's something I wrote to fellow Google Apps vendors here in NZ: http://work.miramarmike.co.nz/2009/11/open-letter…
From this underlying need to "educate" came the world's Google Barcamp