Cloud adoption driven by more than just IT departments

According to a recent Network World article, not all of the growing number of companies adopting cloud computing are being pushed by their IT departments. Instead, marketing and other non-IT divisions are encouraging their businesses to employ the managed IT service.

At a recent cloud conference, Tim Dillon, research associate vice president for IDC Australia and Asia-Pacific, stated that his company was led to cloud-based customer relationship management programs by its sales and marketing departments.

"[Our cloud adoption] did not come from IT and wasn’t led by IT," Dillon told audience members.

The Network World article likens this case to the rise of social media as a marketing tool. While social media involves technology, most marketing departments were the primary force behind company adoption.

IT departments will still be involved with the move to, and maintenance of, the cloud.

"IT will continue to be an influence and a check on those parts of the business that introduce cloud services," said Dillon.

The rapid growth for the technology has led IDC to predict the public cloud market to be worth $29.5 billion by 2015.