Irish firms outpacing UK in using cloud technology

Large Irish companies are adopting cloud technologies at a faster rate than their UK counterparts but have different reasons for wanting to do so, according to new research.

Almost four in ten Irish corporates have started moving to the cloud compared to just 22% of similar businesses in the UK.

Companies on either side of the Irish Sea appear to be motivated by different factors when it comes to investing in cloud, however, with UK businesses eyeing scalability as the key determinant.

In contrast, Irish corporates, those with more than 250 users, see a decreased dependence on in-house servers as the biggest benefit of cloud adoption.

Other motivating factors for firms here include increased efficiency and the ability to “future-proof” their networks.

Commenting on the research compiled by Dublin-based cloud support company, Auxilion, company chief sales officer Paul Schmidtz said it disproved some misconceptions about larger firms and their perception of cloud technology.

“Because of their significant investment in legacy IT systems, the conventional wisdom was that enterprise or larger organisations have been reluctant to adopt cloud computing.

"This study debunks that theory,” Mr Schmidtz said.

The benefit to the bottom line of companies is not as clear, however, with almost 40% of Irish businesses claiming to have similar levels of capital expenditure after migrating to cloud.

“The majority of users have reduced capital expenditure as a result of implementing cloud and this is one of the many benefits of implementation, so it is a little surprising that a sizeable minority is not reporting this.

“It may be that many are testing the water by running cloud alongside existing on premise applications and so continue to bear the cost of in-house hardware and software licences.

"This also emphasises the importance of careful planning in your migration to cloud,” said Mr Schmidtz.

Microsoft’s Azure, which includes Office 365, is the most popular cloud solution among corporates here with more than 40% considering it for their businesses, followed by Google and Amazon Web Services.