It turns out to be in some places that surprised some of our team members.  In a recent study, research shop GfK asked internet users in 22 countries about how strongly they agree or disagree with the statement: “it is essential for me to access or store my photos, documents, music, and other content in cloud” (with cloud defined as “ secure Internet location that you can access from any location or device”). When GfK looked at the results across the different countries represented in the survey, Mexico was the clear cloud leader, with almost half (49%) of its online population giving top-two agreement that the cloud is essential for them. Mexico is followed by Brazil at 44%, Turkey (43%), China (40%), and Russia (37%). Argentina.  The strong representation of the Latin America countries included in the survey didn’t surprise our partner development team (they’ve been working with leading internet solutions providers in those countries to enable our cloud backup, sync, and sharing tools).

Arno Hummerston, global director of digital market intelligence at GfK, commented: “For me, it is interesting that it is mainly countries that adopted the Internet early on, that do not see cloud storage as essential.  Late Internet adopter markets, which tend to be more mobile-oriented, having leap-frogged PCs, have more people who say cloud storage is essential. The implication is that those who started off on PCs or laptops (which have large internal storage) now have a significant mental adjustment to make, in accepting cloud storage. But those who have mostly only ever used mobile devices find cloud storage normal.“

In IDC’s white paper: “The Growth Opportunity for SMB Cloud and Hybrid Business Continuity” (BC), analysts review the shift SMB’s are making from backing up their data on-premise to backing it up in the Cloud. In an effort to mitigate the economic risks of downtime, cut operational costs, and reduce complexity, SMB’s are looking at cloud- based solutions to improve their IT strategies.

Specifically, SMB’s are looking for commercial grade solutions that are:

• Holistic, providing a range of BC services, from data protection and recovery to archiving/data retention to replication and availability
• Simple, eliminating infrastructure and operational complexity
• Cost effective, offering reduced Capex and an economically viable fit with a typical SMB BC budget
• Cloud enabled, meeting public and/or hybrid cloud deployment requirements and offering offsite data protection and DR and a predictable Opex model

When it comes to Cloud data backup, the more robust features, the better. We’ve outlined how we compare with other solutions below- and will briefly talk through how ElephantDrive is keeping up with SMB’s projected investments by going to market as a comprehensive Cloud solution.

ElephantDrive Feature Comparison Table

Economically, a full-service Cloud and syncing solution makes the most sense. Instead of having to separately purchase both a Cloud backup and data syncing program users should have the option of taking advantage of a comprehensive platform that solves their every need. Logistically, this makes accessing your work and important data easier.

The future outlook is clear: “72% of SMBs expect to outlay additional investments in BC over the next 12-24 months…those SMBs without a BC solution will make an investment in the same time period.” We’ve addressed SMB’s demand for a viable Cloud solution by offering a holistic backup solution at an attractive price point. So now, it’s up to SMB’s- will your company be the rule, or the exception?

We are thrilled to be reviewed in detail by the team at Best Reviews “Best Online Backup Services” Check out their evaluation of our feature set and their thoughts on our effort to become the leader in cloud backup, sync, and sharing across all your storage platforms: http://bit.ly/1yP2mUH