Cloud computing may be hailed as the next evolutionary step for today’s computing and garnering wide acceptance but it has yet to make its mark in United Kingdom. It seems like the English are not very keen to adopt cloud infrastructure as revealed by a report from Forrester. According to the report, a paltry one third of UK businesses are either using or intending to implement cloud computing services. United Kingdom at the moment is far behind its neighbors France and Germany in uptake of cloud.
The rest of the world is concentrating and opting for solutions in the cloud which render on-premises hardware and software redundant. In UK, businesses are investing proportionally more on procuring hardware and software. This spending is more than other countries in Europe and is a continuous trend according to the study. The study carried out the analysis of IT budgets of hundreds of firms across Europe and came to this conclusion. Most of United Kingdom’s businesses, prominently those affiliated with banking and financial sector, see no plausible cause to move their infrastructure to cloud. This was revealed by Andrew Bartels who serves as an analyst at Forrester. He aligned the need to integrate the cloud directly with how priority is given to data security and high power data centers. He further added that cloud vendors are currently unable to provide cost effective solutions on both accounts.
UK businesses dedicate a portion of their IT budget for procuring hardware and software. This portion is higher in comparison to what Germany and France spend. According to estimates, 31 percent of the budget is being spent on on-premises services and another 10 percent increase is notably spent on software. The utilities and telecommunications section of the industry is so far the front runner to adopt the cloud, but other notable players in the sector are not very enthusiastic about it.
Apart from this, UK is experiencing a significant increase in adoption of mobile based services. This includes both aspects, the employee facing mobile applications and consumer side. Bartels associates this trend to UK’s big retailers such as Tesco which has become a proponent for mobile services in the market. UK retailers have always set the trend on global level by adopting new technologies. This exerts pressure on other retailers to follow in their footsteps. In France and Germany, it’s an entirely different ball game, the business is not so retail centric. The retailers are fairly traditional nature wise and don’t like to take on new innovations, he further added to the statement.
Adding further impediments to cloud computing progression in the country is the fact that sixty percent of retail sector is rooting for mobile based technology. According to Forrester’s study, this news is accompanied by a sharp spike in mobile application sales for major retailers like M&S. Suffice to say, the future of cloud computing in UK looks tumultuous to say the least.
