Respondents' biggest motivation for moving to the cloud is reducing costs, followed by improving business efficiency and enhancing business agility. According to Microscope, analyst firm IDC forecasts cloud services will grow from its current worth of £10.7 billion ($16.2 billion) to £27 billion ($41 billion) by 2013.

Over 1/3 of respondents in the Brocade study cited security as the most significant barrier to cloud adoption, with complexity of virtualization a close second. Network Computing reports that an IDC survey found 87% of respondents were concerned about cloud computing security. However, Network Computing cites PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant Michael Pearl's observation that cloud computing data services may be able to provide better data security than enterprises' internal IT departments can.

Although most interest for large enterprises remains in private clouds, Microscope cites a Gartner's prediction that private clouds will pave the way for public cloud services in the future.