At this point, most small and medium enterprises & businesses (SME / SMB) are leveraging the cloud to a certain extent. For many business owners and managers, the cloud is now less of an alternative and more of a necessity. There is good reason for this — the European Commission predicts that cloud technology could help a whopping 80% of organizations reduce costs by 10-20%. This is why we have such a strong network of cloud builders and cloud service providers, and are so heavily invested in cloud technology advancements like the Kinetic open storage platform.
Towergate published an excellent infographic which highlighted several cloud benefits for SMEs/SMBs. They also threw in some cloud fun-facts:
- 51% of people believe stormy weather has an effect on cloud computing.
- 29% of people think the Cloud has something to do with weather.
- 95% of people have used the Cloud… but don’t know it.
Although these little tidbits are pretty humorous (so much so that I audibly LOL’d at my desk this morning), it also goes to show how ubiquitous the cloud actually is and how little people really know about it. Many small business owners I’ve spoken with have no idea how much they would benefit from having their own NAS private cloud, or by transitioning some legacy systems over to new, SMB-targeted cloud based applications. The sheer scalability should be enough of a “selling point” for most SMBs/SMEs; the cloud lets you grow as your business grows. More scale = less cost.
Take a look at this infographic and let me know what you think.
