A new poll from CDW, a provider of technology products and services to business, government, education and healthcare, shows a promising forecast for cloud computing adoption by the healthcare industry.

A new poll from CDW, a provider of technology products and services to business, government, education and healthcare, shows a promising forecast for cloud computing adoption by the healthcare industry.

On May 26 CDW announced the results of its first Cloud Computing Tracking Poll, an assessment of current and future cloud computing use in business, government, healthcare and education based on a survey of 1,200 IT professionals familiar with their organization's use of, or plans for, cloud computing.  Twenty-eight percent of U.S. organizations are using cloud computing today, CDW found, with most reporting (73 percent) that their first step into the cloud was implementation of a single cloud application.
                                    
Top cloud adopters included large businesses (37 percent) and higher education (34 percent) followed by the healthcare industry (30 percent).
 
CDW defines cloud computing as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned.

"Many organizations are carefully – and selectively – moving into cloud computing, as well they should, because it represents a significant shift in how computing resources are provided and managed," said David Cottingham, senior director, managed services at CDW.  "With thoughtful planning, organizations can realize benefits that align directly with their organizational goals:  consolidated IT infrastructure, reduced IT energy and capital costs, and 'anywhere' access to documents and applications."   
Applications most commonly operated in the cloud are commodity applications such as email (24 percent of healthcare respondents), file storage (19 percent of healthcare respondents), Web and video conferencing (39 percent of healthcare respondents), and online learning (12 percent of healthcare respondents).
 
Respondents estimated that, on average, only 42 percent of their current services and applications have potential to operate in the cloud.  Even the respondents who identified themselves as cloud users – currently implementing or maintaining cloud computing – said they expect to spend no more than one-third of their IT budget (34 percent) on cloud computing by 2016, and at the same time, to save 31 percent of their IT budget by using cloud resources and applications.  Non-cloud users said they expect to spend slightly more than one-quarter of their IT budget (28 percent) on cloud computing by 2016, and to save 23 percent by using cloud computing resources and applications.
 
Among current cloud users, 84 percent said they cut application costs by moving to the cloud.  On average, cloud users report saving 21 percent annually on those applications moved to the cloud.
 
"The potential to cut costs while maintaining or even enhancing computing capabilities for end users presents a compelling case for investment in cloud computing," Cottingham said. "The fact that even current cloud users anticipate spending just a third of their IT budget on cloud computing within five years suggests that before wide-scale implementation, IT managers are taking a hard look at their IT governance, architecture, security and other prerequisites for cloud computing, in order to ensure that their implementations are successful."
 
The CDW Cloud Computing Tracking Poll includes findings specific to each of the eight industries surveyed during March 2011:  small businesses, medium businesses, large businesses, the Federal government, state and local governments, healthcare, higher education and K-12 public schools.  The survey sample includes 150 individuals from each industry who identified themselves as familiar with their organization's use of, or plans for, cloud computing. 

For a copy of the complete CDW 2011 Cloud Computing Tracking Poll click here.