BOSTON, MA – December 16, 2015 – CloudHealth® Technologies, the leader in Cloud Service Management, joined a group of over 50 collaborating industry leaders to reveal the results of the fifth annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey. Conducted by North Bridge Venture Partners and analyst firm Wikibon, this study is the broadest and deepest exploration of cloud trends in the industry. This year’s survey reflects perspective from vendors and users spanning senior executives to practitioners across all industry sectors.

“Cloud has been gaining momentum year-over-year since the Future of Cloud Computing survey was launched five years ago. Looking at the adoption rates and trends at such a detailed level, it’s undeniable that the most successful technology leaders of today and tomorrow are scaling in the cloud,” said Jim Moran, General Partner at North Bridge.

“Last year we discussed the second cloud front and the rise of “cloud-native” companies. This year, we’re seeing the pervasiveness of cloud disrupt industries across the board as companies look to maximize and implement cloud as a strategic and integral technology,” continued Moran. “We’re also seeing the emergence of the cloud as the only way businesses can truly get more out of their data including analyzing and executing on it real-time. This will be a huge opportunity, but as the survey showed, because data rarely moves between clouds (Public/Private), companies must first learn how to interconnect disparate data sources into new applications.”

The cloud has reached the point where businesses are no longer debating whether or not to use cloud, but how pervasively they will use it. The 2015 survey results highlight record levels of corporate adoption of cloud computing, both for business functions and in the more complicated IT areas, especially to run content management and application development in the cloud. IT teams are finally jumping on board, seeing a surprising level of cloud adoption this year, seizing back the reins on the technology strategy of their companies. From the bottom to the top, digital technologies delivered from the cloud are becoming differentiating factors for more businesses.

"The cloud has finally gone mainstream. Companies of all sizes, across all industries are taking advantage of everything the cloud has to offer,” said CloudHealth Technologies Founder and CTO Joe Kinsella. "This has lead to a seismic shift in IT, where they are taking on more of a leadership role as organizations increasingly prioritize centralized cloud governance, while maintaining decentralized management."

Key survey findings include:

• IT is moving significant processing to the cloud with 85.9 percent of web content management, 82.7 percent of communications, 80 percent of app development and 78.9 percent of disaster recovery now cloud-based.
• While business users have been a fan of cloud’s ease of use, accessibility and scalability since 2011, the importance of cloud agility has leapt from fourth to second in importance in the last five years.
• Corporate cloud computing strategies are focusing on public (up 43.3%) and hybrid (up 19.2%) while private cloud has taken a significant back seat (down 48.4%).
• SaaS is the most pervasive cloud technology used today with a presence in 77.3 percent of all organizations, an increase of 9 percent since 2014. Accordingly, ROI expectations are high with 78 percent expecting to see results within three months. Fifty eight percent expect ROI in less than three months for PaaS services.

Additional findings are detailed in the Future of Cloud 2015 presentation.

The Initial Waves of Cloud Computing

Cloud truly began to gain speed when organizations realized it could be used above and beyond simple cost cutting efforts. Developer adoption, still gaining speed even today, showed an opportunity for applications only possible in the cloud.

“In the five years we’ve done this survey, we’ve seen cloud change from a rising niche to an industry shaping technology, not only disrupting the startup sector but companies in all industries as well,” said Moran. “As speed increasingly determines who wins from a competitive perspective, companies of all types are considering cloud strategies as they try to move at software speed.”

The New Era of Cloud Practicality

Today, cloud use is less about adoption and more about the cloud at work. This was a theme witnessed throughout the 2015 results. Inhibitors have shifted from reliability and interoperability to pragmatic issues such as building the right network and tackling challenges such as security, regulation, privacy and lock-in. Even more telling, concern over cost has tripled in the last five years, a reflection of the competitive vendor landscape and the actualization of the cloud on budget reports at all levels.

Movement of data has fueled even more complexity and the limits of data transportability are being tested across Clouds. Thirty eight percent of respondents said that they have moved or considered moving from public cloud to private, with 40 percent of those respondents reporting technical difficulties moving the data.

The reemergence of IT’s use of cloud is one of the largest indicators of the normalization of cloud. Business uses often occur at a smaller scale, impacting specific teams within sales or customer service and growing slowly among similar teams. With IT’s full engagement, we expect to see the cloud blossom exponentially and a direct impact on the expansion of the hybrid cloud.

Follow @futureofcloud and join the #FutureofCloud conversations on Twitter.

Visit www.northbridge.com/cloud-computing for all surveys published since 2011.

About North Bridge

North Bridge Venture Partners and North Bridge Growth Equity are active partners with entrepreneurs providing seed-to-growth financing for innovative companies looking to disrupt big markets. With $3.5 billion in capital currently under management, North Bridge partners, many founders themselves, work with entrepreneurs to apply their expertise in the creation, operation and scaling of market-leaders. The firm has funded more than 170 companies creating many billions in market value. Among those firms are Acquia, Actifio, Cool Planet, Couchbase, Demandware, Mavenir Systems, Paydiant, Proto Labs, Reval and Starent Networks. The firm is based in Waltham, MA. To learn more about North Bridge go to http://www.northbridge.com. Follow us at @North_Bridge.

About Wikibon

Wikibon is a community of business technology practitioners founded to deliver the most actionable and real-time information available in the marketplace. The Wikibon analyst team comprises expertise cutting across all facets of business technology, with a cross-functional focus on cloud, big data/analytics and infrastructure. Wikibon research methodologies heavily leverage traditional approaches and advanced social media and data analysis techniques. To learn more about Wikibon, go to http://wikibon.com. Follow us @Wikibon.

About CloudHealth Technologies

CloudHealth is changing the way organizations manage cloud environments through a policy-driven approach and focus on cloud governance. The company's cloud service management platform consolidates, evaluates, analyzes and optimizes data from disparate data sources. This results in an optimally performing cloud environment, enabling enterprises and service providers to align cloud operations with business objectives, while reducing costs and ensuring service levels are being met. The company is backed by Scale Venture Partners, .406 Ventures and Sigma Prime Ventures and is headquartered in Boston, MA. For more information, visit www.cloudhealthtech.com or follow us on Twitter @cloudhealthtech and LinkedIn.