The usage and adoption of cloud computing by small and medium businesses

Cloud computing has become the buzzword in the industry today. Though, it is not an entirely new concept but in today's digital age, it has become ubiquitous due to the proliferation of Internet, broadband, mobile devices, better bandwidth and mobility requirements for end-users (be it consumers, SMEs or enterprises). In this paper, the focus is on the perceived inclination of micro and small businesses (SMEs or SMBs) toward cloud computing and the benefits reaped by them. This paper presents five factors influencing the cloud usage by this business community, whose needs and business requirements are very different from large enterprises. Firstly, ease of use and convenience is the biggest favorable factor followed by security and privacy and then comes the cost reduction. The fourth factor reliability is ignored as SMEs do not consider cloud as reliable. Lastly but not the least, SMEs do not want to use cloud for sharing and collaboration and prefer their old conventional methods for sharing and collaborating with their stakeholders. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.