Half of company offices say that they use application software from the Cloud. This means that the use of Cloud applications has risen by almost 20% over the last 24 months. The use of applications from the public Cloud is highest in the education sector by a considerable distance. Learning environments and student administration systems are largely Cloud applications, so penetration of Cloud applications is rapidly heading for 100% in this sector. The construction sector still seems to be the most reserved, with only 29% of locations using applications from the Cloud. This has emerged from an analysis by Computer Profile of 6,000 interviews conducted with IT managers from Dutch company offices with at least 50 employees. The Cloud definition used is based on applications from the public Cloud.

Segmentation according to extent (employee category) shows that the centre of gravity in the use of Cloud applications is amongst company locations with about 200 employees. The fact is that with 50 to 100 employees penetration is at 42.6%, with  100 to 200 at 52.7%, with 200 to 500 at 49%, with 500 to 1,000 at 48.5%, and 38% at locations with over 1,000 employees.

Cloud applications are often HR and Office

For each application listed by Computer Profile we asked whether or not it was a solution from the public Cloud, a hosted or private Cloud solution, or whether the application still operates on premises within one’s own organisation. If we look at the total of public Cloud solutions which we encountered, it emerges that the biggest share of current public Cloud applications is still an HR solution (26.2%). Branch-specific applications form about 24% of Cloud applications  (vertical 15% + e-learning 5%). The share that Office takes up from the Cloud has increased considerably in comparison with a year ago and forms the third biggest group of Cloud applications with about 23%.

If we look at the spread of public Cloud applications, we see that of all company offices (>= 50 employees) about 22% say that they use an HR solution from the Cloud. One year ago, that figure was still 18% and two years ago it was 14%. Office applications from the Cloud are used in over 20% of company offices, a strong increase as compared 12.5% in 2014 and 8.4% in 2013. This increase is accounted for mainly by the increased use of Office 365 from Microsoft. CRM software from the public Cloud is in use amongst 6% of the company offices in the 50+ segment. The majority are Salesforce.com applications followed by Microsoft CRM online and Oracle . Both document management systems and financial applications from the Cloud are found amongst about 6% of company locations.

Suppliers of Cloud applications

Microsoft is the most popular vendor of public Cloud solutions. Applications from this maker are used by 17.5% of all company offices. This comes about because Microsoft has several irons in the fire in the field of Cloud applications. The use of Office 365 continues to rise, but in addition Microsoft also supplies Exchange solutions from the Cloud, Share Point and Dynamics. Cloud solutions from RAET are used by 8% of locations and  Schoolmaster by 6.3%. All other vendors are found at no more than 6% of locations.

Source: computerprofile.com, December 23, 2016