Cloud vendors 'have challenges to overcome' to better serve SMEs, says Verizon Cloud CTO

Traditional SMEs not tempted by cloud computing, admits Verizon Cloud's Ryan Shuttleworth

Cloud service providers face a number of challenges that they need to overcome in order to meet the needs of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) - who aren't being adequately served by major infrastructure providers.

That's according to Ryan Shuttleworth, chief technology officer for Verizon Cloud, who agreed with recent research that suggested that SMEs are rejecting cloud storage.

"I think that is the case because the needs of small organisations are very different from those of big business," he told Computing.

Cloud has been heavily adopted by web-heavy start-ups, such as Uber and Airbnb, but has failed to make major inroads into the SME sector, which Shuttleworth argued has specific requirements that vendors find challenging to provide for.

"I think when you get down to the micros and the start-ups, they're adopting. But when you get to more traditional SMEs - the bricks and mortar businesses - their application requirements are actually SaaS [software-as-a-service] requirements, really," he explained, adding: "Then they're mixed-up with a back-office accounting platform and a point-of-sale system from a supplier."

Shuttleworth pointed to complexity of systems and cost, as well, as two of the main reasons there hasn't been a strong adoption of cloud in the SME sector.

"I think these are things that don't often gel very well, and then you get the complexity from a small business owner due to all their subscriptions, and the fact that the money is significant on a monthly basis for them," he said, suggesting that altering services to fit this model is a challenge.

"I think we've got some challenges in the industry to make those things gel better from a technology perspective, then integrate it with a price point. I do see that challenge," concluded Shuttleworth.