Globally, firms opting for cloud services past 50%

SLIGHTLY more than half of businesses globally outsource their IT services to cloud providers, choosing that over the traditional model of building those services in-house, said Parallels CEO Birger Steen.

Speaking to BizIT at the Parallels Summit in New Orleans, Mr Steen said that the industry has finally crossed the halfway mark in terms of users opting for cloud services.

Network software company, Spiceworks, said that over the last 12 months, it saw a 10 per cent shrinkage of companies using on-premise IT, pushing the base of cloud users to 55 per cent.

The cloud's value proposition to companies include lowered cost and handing off technical headaches to a third party,…