IT Managers Want 'Bundled' Clouds
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The use of cloud-based services is on the rise, with new research showing U.S. small- and medium-sizebusinesses are expected to allocate an increased percentage of their budget for these services in the next few years.
According to recent AMI-Partners research, the proportion of funds allocated for cloud-based services was 10 percent in 2010, but is predicted to rise to more than 15 percent by 2015.
As more and more businesses choose these services, the study indicates, those in charge of making the purchasing decisions are showing a strong inclination to purchase bundledcloud offerings as opposed to stand-alone applications.
Thirty-eight percent of small and medium-size businesses have indicated a strong preference for obtaining software as a service as part of a bundle, according to the research, compared to only 11 percent that are interested in a single service.
In addition, one-third of businesses are interested in bundling multiple hosted infrastructure and remotely managed service offerings, as opposed to just 9 percent of firms that want only a single service.
"A significant segment of U.S. SMBs prefer to deploy multiple cloud services in order to achieve flexibility, ease of IT management, and lower CAPEX," AMI Analyst Donald Best said in a prepared release.
The soon-to-be-published research details preferences for software as a service and hosted infrastructure bundling, as well as hosted unified communications and productivity and collaboration suite bundles.
