Women have their heads in the cloud

Beverley Head
Tuesday, 17 May 2011 15:35

Business IT - Technology

Cloud computing vendors have an unexpected ally in the form of women business owners. Or do they?

A survey of 600 Australian businesses has found that 62 per cent of female business owners in the small and medium enterprise space planned to make more use of online software and services in the next 12 months, suggesting a possible surge in demand for software as a service (SaaS) or other cloud offerings. Only 51 per cent of male business owners were similarly enthused.

But in a survey that seems to be full of paradoxes, the Sage SME Business Sentiment Index for 2011, which has been released today, claimed in spite of those trends; 'Most businesses ideally prefer to buy their own software.'

Asked whether they would prefer to buy or rent software 95 per cent of businesses opted to buy payroll applications, 88 per cent to buy ERP systems, 84 per cent for buying HR and 73 per cent for buying rather than renting CRM. There was also a marked disinclination to run these applications on computers operated by a hosting partner.

The confusing signals seem to derive from the questions that were asked of SMEs.

Ben Taylor, founder and quantitative director of the Insight room which conducted the survey on behalf of software vendor Sage, said that it had been instructed to use the same survey as that used internationally last year. Some of the questions are quite general and open to wide interpretation.

He acknowledged SMEs were not expressly asked about their enthusiasm for cloud computing or SaaS, just whether they would prefer to buy or rent software (which to a small business could be interpreted as meaning buying or renting a bundle of PC gear from the local Dick Smith shop). But the results have been used to draw a conclusion regarding cloud computing.

Sage however, which has to date had only a limited range of SaaS offerings, seems to be taking the  findings of the report as gospel.

According to Alan Osrin, managing director of Sage Software Australia; 'We are not seeing the requirement for cloud from the mid market.' The company claims that at present its customers are largely only interested in cloud from the perspective of 'ticking the box' - and making sure that it is an option for the future.