Small businesses in the Asia Pacific region are likely to adopt cloud services in the next three years to augment their IT capabilities, a recent research by Parallels, a cloud enablement firm, reveals.

Almost three quarters of those surveyed (68%) agreed that Cloud computing will be an influential factor in driving efficiency and profitability amongst small businesses in APAC in the next 12 months. When asked about the specific benefits that the Cloud has to offer, 69% agreed that scalable flexibility is the biggest advantage that Cloud services can bring to small business IT, while 60% cite cost reduction as a key factor in the uptake of Cloud computing.

While the focus fell on driving efficiency through service automation at the vendor level, participants of the Summit were keen to discuss which Cloud services are likely to take off fastest amongst small businesses in APAC. While over half (52%) of respondents agreed that Virtualised Infrastructure services will fuel adoption of Cloud computing, 44% believed that Shared Web Hosting services will also prove a hit with small businesses in the region. Messaging and collaboration applications are also likely to gain traction in coming months, according to 42% of delegates.

“We were absolutely thrilled to welcome some of the region’s brightest minds to participate in this year’s APAC Summit, and with over 300 delegates in attendance from Singapore, Malaysia, China, Australia, India and Japan, we felt a huge buzz of excitement regarding the future of the Cloud services industry in Asia,” said Jan-Jaap Jager, Vice President and General Manager APAC, Parallels.

He continues: “All signs point towards the expansion of the market in this region. For example, Go Daddy took an important step by underscoring its expansion into Asia with the announcement of a new data centre in Singapore, and analysts from Tier1 Research, IDC and Springboard pointed to evolving market models including the entrance of telcos into the Cloud space.”

In accordance with the speakers and panelists at the Summit, seven out of ten respondents (70%) agreed that small businesses should choose the public Cloud over private Cloud because it reduces the need for dedicated IT support, and 40% reiterated the benefits of cost savings that the public Cloud can bring to the small business sector. In addition, over one third (36%) of respondents believed that there is a much wider range of applications available in the public Cloud.

Speakers at the Summit included executives from Microsoft, Go Daddy, VeriSign and Open-Xchange, covering topics as diverse as the standardisation of Cloud services across markets, security, and growth strategies for Cloud Service Providers targeting the small business market that will help them profit from the Cloud. The Saturday panel discussion featuring speakers from PacHosting, Webvisions, Directi, AussieHQ and Tsukaeru.net further explored Cloud strategy including the need to compete in a niche market versus the advantages of providing a full service portfolio.