What’s Most Important: Cloud Cost, Security or Collaboration?
When it comes to cloud computing, businesses are more focused on collaboration capabilities and data security considerations rather than pricing considerations. That’s the conclusion of a Google Apps administrator survey from the Cloud Alliance for Google Apps.
The alliance includes seven SaaS companies that write Google Apps-compatible applications. The survey, conducted in February and March, included more than 2,000 Google Apps administrators.
The survey results revealed:
- One-quarter of survey respondents in organizations with more than 200 workers listed security and privacy as their primary concerns. Those issues were followed by system availability, reliability and service level agreements, which were cited by 17.5% of Google Apps admins.
- Third on the list was interoperability with existing software, as mentioned by 15% of responding IT professionals.
- The typical Google Apps administrator downloads nearly six additional SaaS applications from the Google Apps Marketplace. But 23 percent survey respondents said that deeper integration between third-party applications and Google Apps would make life easier.
I don’t think the findings are all that startling. But… I do think the Cloud Alliance for Google Apps is worth watching. The seven-company alliance is expected to expand to about 10 to 12 companies over the next few months, according to David Politis, chairman of the alliance and CEO of BetterCloud.
Each of current alliance members has traction with “thousands” of customers, Politis told Talkin’ Cloud yesterday. He also mentioned the need for alliance members to work closely with VARs, MSPs and cloud integrators — so I suspect the Cloud Alliance for Google Apps will do some channel outreach in the months ahead.
