Lower Prices Drive New Cloud Projects, Channel Opportunities
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Cloud Spending in 2013
37% of respondents spent $10,000 to $100,000 on cloud infrastructure last year, 23% said they spent $100,000 to $1 million, and 33% spent less than $10,000. -
Higher Spending in 2014
Almost one-quarter of respondents expect to spend up to 25% more this year on cloud infrastructure while 20% said they would spend between 25% and 50% more. -
Pricing Savvy
Nearly 82% of respondents said they were aware of the price cuts in the cloud infrastructure market. -
Moving to the Cloud
Thanks to lower pricing, 37% of companies will move more applications to the cloud this year, compared with last year and 35% will experiment with cloud projects they wouldn't have tried otherwise. -
Price Leader
61% of respondents said Amazon offered the best pricing for the cloud. Other leading cloud infrastructure companies fell behind. Only 8% said Google offered the best pricing followed by Rackspace (6%) and Microsoft (5%). -
Monitoring Price Changes
41% of respondents said they monitor cloud price changes closely while 42% said they review their cloud infrastructure bills occasionally. Others aren't interested (10%) or never review their bills (7%). -
Fluctuating Bills
42% of respondents said their cloud infrastructure bill fluctuates 10% to 20% monthly. -
Budget Buster
33% of respondents said they have exceeded their monthly budget for cloud infrastructure; 22% said they have done this two or three times a year; 10% said they have exceeded the budget at least once a quarter. -
Product Leader
Amazon comes out on top in terms of value: 70% of respondents said Amazon offered the best cloud product relative to price. Falling far behind were Google (8%), Microsoft (4%), and Rackspace (3%). -
Performance Over Price
62% of respondents said features and performance are more important than pricing. Only 17% said pricing is most important.
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Why Metrics Matter to the Channel Large and midmarket companies plan to increase their spending on cloud infrastructure and move more applications to the cloud this year as pricing continues to fall, according to a recent survey from 2nd Watch, a cloud service company that builds and manages Amazon Web Services- (AWS-) based IT operations for enterprises. Amazon, Google and Microsoft have significantly lowered the pricing of their cloud services in the past six months. As a result, IT directors are spending more on the cloud and using these price cuts to drive new, innovative projects that they might once have passed on due to the high cost. The majority of respondents said that features and performance were more important than price when selecting vendors. As more companies increase cloud spending and place greater emphasis on performance, there will be new opportunities for IT channel companies to help enterprises with vendor selection and cloud infrastructure management. Channel Insider looks at are key takeaways from the survey.