The rapid rise to prominence of the cloud computing model is forcing a rethink of the role and scope of the in-house data center in corporate IT.
A report from IDC, sponsored by Computacenter, notes that while cloud services still represent only a fraction of most organizations' IT, adoption is likely to increase whether CIOs want it or not.
Ongoing global macroeconomic woes and direct or indirect pressure from employees to adopt cloud services will pressure CIOs and business leaders to embrace the model further.
This means it is more important than ever for the cloud to be an integral part of any corporate IT strategy.
Cloud adoption from the bottom up
According to IDC, while cloud take up rates are impressive worldwide - with a whopping 98.9% of Western European organizations reporting using some form of cloud services in one of the firm's surveys - the proportion using more complicated cloud services is significantly lower.
More involved cloud applications, such as CRM and HRM, require a far greater commitment to the technology than more common applications such as web conferencing and collaboration. But several corporate trends are putting pressure on IT leaders to consider taking this plunge.