Intuit says 37 percent SMBs are fully adapted to cloud – right or wrong?

Den Howlett for Diginomica writes: SUMMARY: An Intuit sponsored study conducted by Emergent Research says that today, 37 percent of SMBs are ‘fully adapted’ to the cloud, a figure set to rise to 74 percent by 2020. If the data is correct then this is not a shabby result. That runs contrary to what Ron Miller reckons. But then Miller is way off base. But then the research might be questionable as well.

We don’t know the methodological basis for the Intuit research but we do know that Emergent is pitching cloud heavily for Intuit and we also know this only covers US businesses. That’s clear from a recent write up by Accounting Technology where the main ‘pitch’ covers a series of business type personas with which cloud native businesses will be familiar. To quote:

• Plug-in Players, which plug into cloud-based providers that deliver comprehensive, tailored solutions and take advantage of those ecosystems and networks to collaborate and share information.
• Hives, or the “Hollywood model” that futurists have been predicting to be the next big trend for the last 30 years, according to King [report author.] In this model, staffing levels are flexible, rising and falling to meet project needs and including pooled resources and shared workspaces.
• Head-to-Headers, or small businesses competing against major firms by using platforms and plug-in services to reach markets previously only accessible to large corporations. This persona has become more prevalent in the pharmaceutical industry, where King has witnessed “a surge in growth in small pharmaceutical companies that can use high-end software and big data on the cloud, and not need to have big labs and staff.”
• Portfoliosts, or cloud-adapted freelancers with multiple streams of income, some passion-based and some needs-based, who are building personal empires in the cloud. [snip]   The article continues @ Diginomica, click here to continue reading....