Cloud is taking the world by storm. Currently, North America accounts for the highest revenue and top service providers call this region home, but the Asia-Pacific region is the fastest growing one.  Europe and Africa are catching up in their own respective ways, and the Australia New Zealand (ANZ) region is not to be left behind.

In fact, it maybe a cloud year for companies in the ANZ region, going by a survey conducted by Computer Weekly/TechTarget. Their report titled IT Priorities Research  shows that a significant number of CIOs who were interviewed as a part of the survey opined that they have already moved to the cloud or are planning to do so by 2017. Much of these cloud initiatives are expected in the areas of data center, storage, and backup, though other aspects such as cloud computing, IoT, and M2M are also expected to drive cloud adoption in the ANZ region.

To be precise, the report states that 41 percent of IT decision-makers are looking to be involved in some form of cloud storage initiative, while 36 percent will choose a cloud backup feature during this year. Besides these two areas, cloud is also going to play a big role in ANZ data centers as 39 percent of respondents plan to work around pure or hybrid cloud models within their data centers.

In addition, 54 percent of respondents believe that cloud computing will be a significant part of IT budget this year. This is an interesting revelation because in another survey, 38 percent of IT decision-makers in Australia and New Zealand expect their IT budgets to be flat or lower in 2017 when compared to the previous year. Putting these two together, we can say that even if budgets are going to remain stagnant, the fact that it much of it will be allocated for cloud, means that every IT decision-maker hopes to make the most of every dollar spent.

This report is sure to bring much cheer to cloud service providers of all sizes, as everyone can have a share in the pie, though the larger providers will have a significantly higher share than the smaller ones. Already, companies like Alibaba and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are setting up operations in Australia, or they are expanding their presence to cover more cities in this region. An example of such a move is the setting up of a large data center in Sydney by Alibaba, making it one of the largest ones outside of mainland China.  Other providers like Microsoft, IBM, and Google are likely to catch up too, and it won’t be long before we see their presence in this region.

In all, this news exudes much optimism, as companies can make their operations more efficient and bring in higher revenues and profits. The cloud providers who setup shop here will employ more people, who in turn, will fuel more demand for goods and services. Eventually, these development are sure to augur well for the economies of both these countries as well.

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