Aptum tracks shifting responses to cloud

Attitudes to cloud have changed, in some cases quite radically, over the past few weeks and months as the coronavirus has forced new working patterns.

The response from some vendors has been to go out into the market and research what has happened between March and June, not only to ensure that their marketing messages are hitting home, but also to arm channel partners with the most up-to-date information.

Cloud player Aptum has added its findings to a growing list that have revealed sweeping changes to remote working and cloud collaboration tools.

The firm found that 76% of businesses are using cloud services to facilitate remote working and just under half of the IT pros surveyed have used hosted solutions to provide users with critical services.

Susan Bowen, CEO and president at Aptum, said there had been four changes accelerated by Covid-19, including the shift by customers to really home in on planning and cloud infrastructure; making sure there was digital optimisation; an increase in cloud adoption and a deepening of the commitment by those that had already started; and signs that many customers saw private cloud as an important plank in their strategy.

She said the pandemic had also underlined the fact that there was no longer a need for users to buy infrastructure and they could use MSPs taking advantage of colocation services to meet their requirements.

The Aptum survey also showed that 92% of IT pros were confident in their firms’ business continuity plans during the pandemic.

“They are saying they are confident it works, but also businesses are prepared to take more risks,” said Bowen. “The Covid situation has meant they haven’t had the time to strategise and have had to adopt and go.”

Bowen is sharing the results with partners, encouraging them to start building on the changes that the last few months have made in the market by offering more services, such as disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), to help customers manage data in the cloud.

Aptum has stressed that it will “go on the offensive” at a time when some others are battening down the hatches, and carried out the research to confirm it was on the right track.

“We want to inform the industry leaders looking for data points to support decisions,” said Bowen. “We can help our channel partners.

“We did not lay people off because of Covid and we are not taking advantage of the crisis, but we have gone on the offensive, rather than defence.”

She said the coronavirus had had an impact right across the board, not just in responses to the cloud, and the virus would leave a profound impact.

“I don’t think any organisation is the same now,” she added. “I don’t think any of us as people are the same. We have looked at our lives in different ways, living in a pandemic and living in our own environment, where we have to make adjustments every day.”