Cloud and CRM Push Software Spend Through 2014, According to Gartner
Cloud and CRM Push Software Spend Through 2014, According to Gartner by UCStrategies Staff
According to Gartner Inc., the economic recession and a low number of resources are causing the number of customers migrating to the public cloud as a service to rise. The Gartner report noted that 60 percent of North American survey respondents will increase their budgets for SaaS and cloud in the next couple of years. At the same time, more focus is being placed on single tenant hosted applications by companies in other regions.
According to Gartner analyst Hai Hong Swineheart, “It's very clear that mature regions are focusing on public cloud computing, while emerging regions are focusing on private cloud computing. This could be due in part to an immature telecommunications infrastructure in some emerging countries while data security is a persistent concern related to public cloud services among our clients in developing-region enterprises.”
The keenness to adopt services and software related to the cloud are greatly changeable, and depends on the needs of specific customers, regulatory requirements, financial implications and a willingness to take risks.
The president of Turkey Systems, an Indianapolis-based MSP, James Stull, said: “"It really depends on what the customers are comfortable with. I have some customers among financial institutions who are very reluctant to embrace the cloud because they don't have complete control over their data, and they have concerns about how auditors will react. At the same time, they don't necessarily mind hosting arrangements. They might have their email hosted, for example.
The nice part about the cloud is that you don't have the upfront costs associated with the conversion. So those two aspects counter one another, and the reaction has been very mixed. But by and large, I haven't seen a cloud conversion that wasn't pushed primarily by management as a means of reducing their upfront costs.”
In general, the predictions outline unassertive rises in the spending on worldwide software from now until the end of 2014. Additionally, the budgets may be the most flat in North America and Western Europe, where the distribution of IT is more practised. Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific are anticipated to have the greatest rises in the coming two years.
The top priorities for respondents appear to be CRM software, security software and virtualization software. Interestingly, in Europe and Asia Pacific, virtualization was not listed among the top three priorities; according to Gartner, this could be a result of the extensive legacy development. (CY) Link