IT Professionals Still Confused about What 'Cloud Computing' Means, Finds Proofpoint Survey

The term “cloud computing” is still confusing for IT professionals, an August 2009 survey by Proofpoint (News - Alert) Inc. and Osterman Research reveals.

Proofpoint provides solutions for email security, archiving, encryption and data loss prevention.

The survey was conducted on more than 200 IT professionals. In it, 40 percent of IT professionals answered affirmatively when asked whether they are confused about the definition when they hear the term “cloud computing,” while 52 percent answered that they are not confused. Thirty-three percent believe cloud computing is more hype than substance, while 24 percent weren’t sure about the same.

 

The understanding of cloud computing isn't clearer in other areas of the enterprise as well. For example, only 24 percent of respondents believe their CEO could define cloud computing while 59 percent responded their CEO would fail the task. In addition, most of the respondents believe that finance directors would have a difficult time defining cloud computing. In fact, only 10 percent said their finance heads could accurately define cloud computing.

 

Responses to the Proofpoint survey also revealed that opinions are divided about the security of sensitive data in the cloud. In fact, 50 percent of respondents believe that if they moved sensitive data to a cloud-based provider, they would run a higher risk of having that data compromised or being in violation of government data-protection statutes. While 43 percent believe that cloud computing is less secure than managing things in house, 31 percent responded that they are not sure about the same.

The August survey from Proofpoint also found that 47 percent of the respondents perceive implementation of cloud computing as a prelude to companies deciding to lay them off.

In a release, Gary Steele, CEO of Proofpoint, said any great paradigm shift will always be accompanied by hype and a fair amount of confusion. Hence, Proofpoint is not surprised to see those percentages, even among IT professionals. Steele continued that the takeaway is that all clouds are not created equal. Since there is an increasing number of SaaS (News - Alert) email security and compliance solutions available and differences in data security, service level agreements, effectiveness and ease-of-use, enterprises have to conduct their due diligence when moving these types of functions to the cloud.

 

Only 37 percent of IT professionals estimate that within the first year of implementation, their organization would realize cost savings from a cloud-based email security system. When respondents were asked about the difference in the quality of cloud-based email security services and cloud-based email archiving services, 46 percent see a significant difference between the cloud-based email security offerings on the market and 43 percent see a significant difference between the cloud-based email archiving solutions.