The non-profit IT industry association CompTIA has published its "Second Annual Trends in Cloud Computing" study (read a summary here). The data shows that cloud computing is weaving its way into the IT and business mainstream. Per the report, "the hesitation is disappearing and companies are moving quickly past experimentation and into heavier use of cloud computing." That heavier use is in both increased numbers of users and increasingly complex applications and processes going into the cloud. From that perspective, our Cloud BPM has the hallmarks of the platform of the future for the CIO and his or her team.
The trend beyond Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) consumption of fairly simple cloud applications to Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) creation of new and complex solutions is significant. PaaS accelerates IT's ability to meet the needs of the business. In addition to speed, BPM PaaS specifically does even more. It creates a flexible and unified enterprise IT infrastructure, and delivers economies of scale in creating new enterprise-level cloud services and applications. That's what our Cloud BPM gives the CIO.
According to the report, which surveyed more than 500 IT professionals, investments in cloud computing solutions and services will likely increase in the next 12 months as opportunities for software companies and customers come into focus. Cloud optimism is on the rise, with 72 percent of respondents saying they feel more positive about cloud computing than they did a year ago.
The cloud is also being used for increasingly complex and mission-critical functions based on "a new found appreciation for how the cloud works and what it can do for a business." The research found that 72 percent of end-user organizations plan to expand the number and types of cloud computing services they use. Currently, roughly one-third of respondents use a PaaS to meet this need, and that number is growing. Beyond innovation, the push toward cloud computing is driven by costs. According to the survey, 85 percent of IT pros say that's a big motivator to get more of their organization on the cloud.
Appian's cloud business is booming. Fully half of our new customer wins in Q3 were for cloud deployment, and the vast majority of our cloud customers use us in the PaaS model. As opposed to all of our competitors, Appian's Cloud BPM technology and business are mature (after all, we brought the first Cloud BPM to market way back in 2007). As organizations in general demand more from cloud computing, Appian will continue to push the envelope on what our customers can achieve with Cloud BPM.
-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications
