AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Nov. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Interest in cloud computing has grown substantially over the past couple of years. Enterprises in New Zealand are constantly evaluating adoption of cloud computing to improve business agility, increase standardisation of IT infrastructure and lower cost of delivering IT services.

Frost & Sullivan's research, State of Cloud Computing New Zealand 2012 reports that of the organisations in New Zealand that currently use cloud computing services, 40% spend more than 10% of their total IT budget on cloud solutions or services, while 20% spend more than 20% of their total IT budget. Larger organisations generally spend significantly more on cloud computing services than smaller ones.

Phil Harpur, Senior Research Manager, Australia & New Zealand ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan says that 57% of organisations in New Zealand that are currently using cloud solutions plan to increase their cloud-based solutions budget significantly over the next 12 months, reflecting a market very much in a growth phase.

Security was cited as the most important criteria when selecting a cloud vendor, followed by trust, reliable services and support, hosting capabilities in NZ, company reputation, value added services, price and ROI. "Vendors must also have sufficient SLAs, a good product roadmap, offer sufficient product scalability and demonstrate strong channel partner capabilities" Harpur added.

Compared to Australia, where 70% of organisations plan to increase their spending on cloud services, New Zealand's tempered growth is largely due to data sovereignty and latency issues. "Local providers guarantee data remains in New Zealand but are more expensive than multinationals hosting data offshore, thus the value proposition is not as strong" Harpur explained.

Benefits of moving to the cloud

The ability to lower overall IT costs is the leading driver for the adoption of cloud computing. Andre Clarke, Country Manager, New Zealand, Frost & Sullivan says "Moving to the cloud enables organsiations to reduce CAPEX, and provides a great deal of flexibility and agility allowing organisations to add scalable computing resources very quickly and at relatively low cost.  This in turn greatly reduces some of the risk associated with developing new products which in the medium to long term will help stimulate market innovation."

It also allows organisations to free up key resources previously dedicated to more traditional IT services and focus on other aspects of operations while providing flexibility to meet business demand via real-time /on-demand computing.

Cloud deployments of most New Zealand organisations are fully deployed rather than in pilot phase. HRM and Unified Communications are the slowest applications to move out of pilot phase, whereas storage & computing solutions have the highest rate of full deployment.

"Key challenges include integrating "shadow IT" cloud purchases into a corporate framework, ensuring effective SLAs and security measures are in place, and managing the increased level of complexity that comes with combining multiple clouds with on-premise resources" Clarke mentions.

Potential for share of pie in the cloud

Software as a Service (SaaS) is the most commonly used delivery model in the cloud offering several benefits over on-premise software such as lower upfront costs, standardisation and ease of upgrade, ubiquitous access and seamless integration with in-house infrastructure.  Adoption rates of SaaS applications are positively correlated with the size of the organisation. Larger organisations are more likely to be using software applications accessed via the cloud, especially for office productivity applications, CRM, HRM and ERP.

Data sovereignty is a prominent issue in New Zealand, particularly in the public sector, where the government's cloud strategy mandates that in certain scenarios data remain in New Zealand; thus limiting the number of potential suppliers. Those with NZ data centres are advantaged, while others have and will forge partnerships to meet this requirement.  

E-mail and storage & computing resources (ie.IaaS) are commonly accessed via the cloud with 53% of New Zealand organisations accessing e-mail via the cloud, and 44% accessing storage & computing resources via the cloud. Office productivity applications, web security and e-mail security are also commonly accessed via the cloud.

Frost & Sullivan's State of Cloud Computing New Zealand 2012 report forms part of the Frost & Sullivan New Zealand Enterprise Communications program. All research services included in this subscription provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants. Interviews with the press are available. If you are interested in more information on this study, please send an e-mail with your contact details to Donna Jeremiah, Corporate Communications, at djeremiah@frost.com.

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MEDIA CONTACT:

Donna Jeremiah
Corporate Communications
E: djeremiah@frost.com
P: + 612 8247 8927

Andre Clarke
Country Manager, New Zealand
E: andre.clarke@frost.com
P: + 64 9903 0076

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan