Cloud vs. SaaS For Small Business

Cloud vs. SaaS For Small Business
Posted by Andrew Conry-Murray @ 12:18:PM | Jan,28, 2009

A new survey shows small business is shy of the cloud. At the same time, a SaaS provider that focuses on SMBs is growing fast. Does SaaS resonate more than "cloud"?

Some 73% of small businesses aren't familiar with the term "cloud hosting," and 57% have no plans to adopt it. That's according to a new survey from Rackspace, which surveyed small and midsize businesses on their awareness of cloud hosting.

I found that to be a surprise, given that small and medium-sized companies can get some real benefits from cloud-based services, such as storage, archiving, e-mail, and Web hosting.

I asked Rackspace CTO John Engates what he makes of these results. "I think it's probably partially the sheer number of messages that are out there in cloud land. I think they are erring on the side that this is just a buzz word."

He says small businesses don't have the time and resources to explore all the incarnations of cloud services. "The smaller they are, the more focused they are on hitting next's week's goals. They don't think about the cloud."

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