Dive Brief:

• More than 80% of technology decision makers say their organizations invested in cloud services in 2016, according to Insight’s second annual Intelligent Technology Index, which surveyed more than 400 IT professionals.

• Of those investing in the cloud, nearly 60% of respondents indicated they invested in Software as a Service, while just over half said they invested in Security as a Service. Infrastructure as a Service and Disaster Recovery as a Service were a bit further behind, at 39% and 34% adoption rates, respectively.

• Only 15% of the survey respondents reported they have "fully migrated" their corporate application workloads to public clouds, while 47% said they are more than halfway implemented. Large and medium companies are leading the way in cloud migration, while smaller companies tend to be further behind.

Dive Insight:

There are many reports about how many companies are adopting cloud, but not many examine exactly how companies are applying cloud tech. Insight’s report found software and security are the dominate service needs, at least for today.

The transition makes sense. Companies that leverage 'as a Service' models in software and security can often produce value quickly, gain flexibility and pay for the services on a consumption basis, making them appeal to their bottom line.

It also stands to logic that large and medium-size companies are making faster progress with cloud migrations. Smaller companies often have smaller IT budgets and fewer dedicated IT personnel, so they are likely to move a bit slower when it comes to cloud implementations.