New research from Host Analytics and conducted by Dimensional Research has found that for four out of five business execs, the cloud is chosen for its value over anything else.

A similar number of employees surveyed said that it’s beneficial for them to use cloud applications.

The research, which covered over 300 CIOs and business executives, again found various benefits to cloud adoption, which may perhaps shift the balance as IT budgets are being prepared for 2013.

When asked for the reasons a cloud app was chosen over other, on-premise options, the disparity between business executives and CIOs was stark.

Value was the obvious factor for execs (80%), whereas compliance was the most important component for CIOs (58%); value (53%) and greater competitive advantage (51%) completed the top three.

Compliance is a vital, perhaps underrated reason for utilising the cloud. 61% of survey respondents said they have out of …