Kathy Gibson reports – South African companies expect to massively increase their investment in cloud this year.
Seventy-three percent of South African respondents in the “Cloud in Africa” study released today by World Wide Worx in conjunction with Red Hat and F5 say they will increase their investment in cloud in 2012, up from 55% last year.
As the most mature cloud market in Africa, South Africa demonstrates that it has moved well beyond the early stages of cloud adoption and is now using cloud services to drive business growth an innovation.
Along with this maturity, though, comes the challenge of skills shortages, with 58% of South African respondents indicating that they don’t have the skills they need in cloud.
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, explains that this state of affairs has come about not because companies are not training people, but because these skills are in demand worldwide, so local companies often battle to keep up a steady supply of skilled staff.
The greater maturity also stands South African in good stead when it comes to cloud impacting on actual business growth and increased innovation, with the country significantly outperforming other countries on the continent.