I recently came across a post claiming that Axios Systems had made a survey showing that 68% of all global companies are already planning to adopt a cloud strategy.

I assume everybody will agree that it makes sense to get electricity, water, gas and so on from big utilities. Likewise it makes good sense to have certain IT services delivered from big IT utilities, which we currently call the “cloud”. However, as the customer requirements for customization, integration to other systems, implementation, training, availability, response time and so on increases, the delivery format (cloud or on premise) becomes less important and in many cases “the cloud” is not the answer (yet).

So take it easy out there and continue to think before you act. B2C customers are extremely conservative, B2B customers also. Maybe 68% are planning to adopt a cloud strategy, but that doesn’t mean that they are actually planning a cloud based IT strategy and much less that they will execute a cloud based IT strategy and not at all that it cover all their IT needs. Being a “first mover” is not always the best strategy.

And finally to quote Churchill: “Don’t trust statistics that you haven’t made yourself” :-) A survey made by a vendor with a vented interest in the outcome, should always be taken with a grant of salt.