Accountants have had a reputation for their influence on accounting software buying decisions. But when it comes to influencing purchasing decision for cloud products, they come up much lower in the opinion of small and midsize business decisions makers. That was one of the findings of a cloud survey conducted by Microsoft.Tied as the top influencers with each mentioned by 36 percent of respondents were websites of specific software companies and service provider's/hosting provider's website. Right behind those at No. 3 was industry analysts, websites or blogs, cited by 35 percent. Thirty-one percent listed IT consultants who worked directly with their company and at No. 5 was advice from a business consultant, the choice of 28 percent.
As always, SMBs are hampered by resources. Sixty percent said they lack resources to implement new technologies and applications; 57 percent have resources, but not the time for the effort; and 52 percent responded that they did not have resources to train employees.
Among applications that are currently cloud based, email was a strong No. 1, noted by 40 percent of the respondents and is expected to be used by 65 percent in the next two or three years, remaining by far the most common task performed in the cloud. The greatest percentage growth was for cloud-based voice communications, used by 43 percent with that total to rise to 54 percent. Online backup and databases will go from 22 percent to 49 percent over the two-to-three year period while file sharing will moved from 21 percent to 45 percent over the same period. Instant messaging, used in the cloud by 23 percent of those responding, will move to 47 percent.
Cloud-based billing and accounting is expected to be used by percent of respondents over the short-term, a 95-percent increase from the current level of 17 percent. CRM online usage will also grow by 95 percent to 24 percent of companies, rising from 13 percent.
