New research commissioned by the National Broadband Network has revealed less than half of Australia’s small businesses are yet to take advantage of cloud services.
Titled SME cloud-based services: overseas successes & Australian opportunities, the report found most businesses using the cloud are only running basic services such as email and storage.
Of the 800,000 SMEs the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates to be in Australia, only 44 per cent currently use the cloud. David Kennedy, Research Director of report developer Ovum, said the NBN rollout will see more businesses jump on the cloud bandwagon.
“Access to the latest technologies powered by fast and reliable broadband is vital in helping Australian businesses remain competitive in the global digital economy,” Mr Kennedy said.
“However, due to the resources and bandwidth required, many advanced business tools including cloud services have not previously been accessible by small businesses.”
Mr Kennedy said 2015 will see “a range of new competitive packages and products” on offer for those running SMEs. These are expected to “better leverage the benefits” of faster broadband speeds and the rising variety of cloud applications.
According to Frost & Sullivan, Australia’s cloud computing market value hit $1.23 billion in 2013, a number that is expected to grow to $4.55 billion by 2018.