“Most CIOs will think about moving messaging and collaboration to the cloud and then focus the precious resources they have on line of business applications and the core of what enables their business.”
—Tony Scott, Microsoft CIO

Far more than a silver lining

The rise of the cloud has led to an evolution in how companies understand and define productivity. Today’s cloud solutions make it possible for employees to work in the way that suits them best so they can be more productive without being bound to the physical workplace. And IT is realizing a significant cost savings as they transition their servers, server maintenance, and productivity workloads to the cloud.

• The number of enterprise customers using mobile cloud-based applications will rise to more than 130 million by 2014. (Juniper Research, March 2010)
• By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets. (Gartner, December 2009)
• 80 percent of large enterprise IT managers are at least in trial stage for cloud computing initiatives. (F5 Networks, 2009)

From customization to standardization.

In the world of on-site data centers, businesses derived a competitive advantage from building custom applications to fit their business processes—a costly and time-consuming expense. The value of the cloud is built around broad access to low-cost, standard applications that can be configured to fit the unique needs of your business. As organizations transition to the cloud, we’re seeing their costs shift from capital expenditures to operating expenditures as IT spends significantly less time customizing applications and more time creating actual business value.

The cloud on your terms.

As you transition to the cloud, find a provider that gives you the freedom to build an on-premise, cloud, or hybrid solution for the best of both worlds. And whatever platform you choose, be sure to select a provider that can help you chart a seamless path to the cloud without disrupting your organization’s current systems, processes, and productivity.

“The cloud is helping companies reduce their infrastructure costs by 10 to 50 percent, and that’s an amazing cost savings.”
—Chris Capossela, Microsoft SVP