You need to be really careful from what you glean out of a survey about cloud computing. Especially when it is underwritten by a company that is a SaaS provider.
It’s not to say that results are irrelevant but often these surveys are meant as public relations efforts more than anything else. We would not ordinarily call something out like this but it’s evident of a trend that we know is an issue. Cloud hype is still alive and well. Underwritten surveys only add to the chorus.
In this case, the Sandhill Group released a survey of more than 100 software CEO and CFO’s who say they see a return to pre-recession levels this year thanks in good part to cloud computing. Intacct underwrote the survey. Intacct is a SaaS company providing on-demand financial applications for businesses and CPA firms.
The results show particular strength in the small business sector. According to Sandhill, small businesses are adopting cloud computing at twice the rate of large companies.
We’d like to note that the Sandhill Group looks like a respected organization. It publishes reports and conducts conferences. They feature vendors in Op-Ed columns. These perspectives have their own importance and need to be taken into consideration when viewed in context of a survey such as the one here in question.
According to Information Week SMB, the findings from the Sandhill survey also showed:
- 44% see on-demand cloud and SaS models as the method most customers prefer to software purchasing
- Only 43% indicated plans to add SaaS and cloud offerings, though that’s tempered by the 53% who already have offer a cloud or SaaS model
- 63% use an on-demand or SaaS pricing model
- 10% use a cloud-computing or pay-per use pricing model
- 60% or more of vertical software providers use on-demand SaaS pricing
- 60% of more of the infrastructure and security firms use traditional software licenses
It looks like some of the respondents were also SaaS providers, which again points to the issues with these kinds of underwritten surveys.
You just can’t view underwritten surveys as gospel, especially when they add to the hype that sometimes seems like a deafening roar in the cloud world.
