More than half see the benefit of the cloud

More than half of firms are using some form of cloud computing and the medium is being driven forwards by a need for flexible datastorage, backup and recovery.

This is according to Maggie Meer, organiser of the upcoming Cloud Expo Europe 2012 event.

She believes that ways in which the cloud can be used to improves a firm's day to day business operations will be a hot topic at the expo and pointed to research conducted by the Cloud Industry Forum as evidence.

"One key fact stands out from the research – over 50 per cent of organisations polled - in total 300 - are using the cloud in one form or another right now," she said.

"And what is driving it is the flexibility and agility cloud-based apps can and do deliver."

She added that 73 per cent of those companies already using the cloud are looking to make further investments in it in the near future, particularly in email, data storage, data backup and recovery and collaboration services.

The Cloud Expo Europe event will take place at the Olympia National Hall in West Kensington, London on Monday 25th and Tuesday 26th January and will include speeches from several keynote industry experts.

Scheduled talks include; Cloud Best Practices, Flight to the Cloud and Service Differentiation Through The Cloud.

Ms Meer's comments on the ease the cloud offers business users backs up claims by Claire Galbois-Alcaix, senior marketing manager for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) at Mozy, recently.

She said that because of the flexibility of the cloud simple but worrying things such as off-site data storage have never been easier to manage.

But she also stressed the cost benefits as the format allows employees to work away from the office meaning that firms can save considerable sums in terms of energy and maintenance.

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