Gartner: US will lead Europe on cloud adoption

Report claims eurozone crisis will hinder uptake of cloud-based solutions

The recession is holding back Europe's cloud adoption rate, according to a report that has been questioned by UK onlookers.

The findings, published by IT research body Gartner, claim that Europe's cloud adoption will trail the US's by at least two years.

The eurozone crisis has been cited as a major factor that could turn European resellers off the idea of adopting cloud.

It causes "major investments to be put on hold", according to the report, claiming that it "slow[s] down strategic and game-changing decision making."

Ian Moyse, sales director at vendor Workbooks, disputed the claims made by Gartner, and argued that Europe and the US were incomparable.

He said: "It is interesting that in the report, it talks a lot about the current European financial situation, but from everything I have seen, the US economy isn't really thriving, is it?

"When there is a recession, people want to do things more effectively and look to reduce their costs. There is consistent pressure on IT departments to do more with less, and guess what, if you do it right, cloud can help with this and reduce your costs.

"Business does not stop overnight because of the recession. There are opportunities to exploit the disadvantages if you do it effectively," he added.

Paolo Malinverno, vice president at Gartner, admitted that European interest in cloud adoption was high, but that its unique multi-country set-up meant that "some of cloud computing's potential risks and costs... take on a different meaning in Europe."

Gartner also cited diversifying data security regulations as well as complex multi-enterprise integration as reasons behind the predicted lapse in European cloud uptake.