IBM: Nearly Two-Thirds Of Global CIOs Ready For Cloud
In its 2011 CIO study, IBM found that 60 percent of 3,000 global CIOs will embrace the cloud by 2016. The main driver of cloud adoption is to grow business and achieve a competitive advantage, the study found. Meanwhile, in IBM's 2009 CIO study, only a third of global CIOs said they planned to pursue cloud computing as a competitive advantage.
According to this year's study, the biggest increases in cloud focus in the media and entertainment industry, which rose to 73 percent. Automotive and telecommunications cloud plans also increased, to 70 percent and 69 percent, respectively.
Geographically, IBM's CIO cloud study found that 70 percent of CIOs in the U.S., Japan and South Korea identify cloud as a top priority, while 68 percent of CIOs in China have cloud computing on the top of their want list. This, too, is a dramatic jump from two years prior, when CIO interest in the cloud sat at roughly a third in each country.
IBM's CIO study also examined top business priorities for global CIOs. The survey revealed that 83 percent of CIOs see business intelligence and analytics as top priorities as they seek to act upon the increasing amounts of data at their disposal. By industry, analytics and business intelligence hold the most interest in chemical and petroleum, consumer products and healthcare, where 91, 89 and 86 percent of CIOs surveyed, respectively, said it is part of their plans to increase competitiveness over the next three to five years.
Mobility is also becoming a massive priority for CIOs, with 74 percent of CIOs saying that mobile computing and mobility solutions are a game changer for their businesses, a 6 percent increase over the 2009 study. The travel, media and entertainment and energy and utilities industries ranked mobility solutions as the most pressing, with 91, 86 and 82 percent, respectively, citing mobility strategy as a top priority.