North America leads as Europe falters in cloud innovation

North America is the leading region for cloud computing innovation, while Europe is bringing up the rear, according to research released this week.

A survey from Informa Telecoms & Media found that 70 per cent of respondents thought North America was the most innovative region in the cloud industry, followed at some distance by Asia with 15 per cent of the vote. Europe only managed to get eight per cent of responses.

Outside of the USA, which is widely considered to be at least a couple of years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of cloud adoption, Japan, Singapore and the UK were highlighted as cloud hotbeds.

“Europe produces many cloud innovators, but they often leave to get funding – usually to the United States, which has an excellent start-up culture,” said Camille Mendler, principal analyst at Informa. “Countries willing to take an investment risk in cloud computing are the most likely to reap its rewards.”

The sense is that domestic growth can be encouraged by local governments. Eight out of ten survey respondents said governments must provide incentives for businesses to use cloud services. At present, the most active government programs are in Asia, where countries like Singapore subsidise and educate small enterprises to use cloud services.

“Small enterprises are the growth engine of economies worldwide, in terms of job creation,” said Mendler. “There’s growing recognition that a country’s economic competitiveness is closely tied to how these enterprises use cloud services.”