Report: 4 in 10 midsized businesses turning to the cloud

According to a recent Microsoft report, four in 10 midsized companies will pay for at least one cloud-based service within the next three years.

The software giant conducted the research across more than 3,000 companies in 16 countries. The report is the company's third annual cloud market analysis for midsized businesses.

Of those surveyed, 39 percent expect to be in the cloud within the next three years, which is a significant increase from 29 percent currently using the managed IT service. Furthermore, most of these businesses will most likely adopt a hybrid solution, mixing public and private services for their applications, such as business-class email, collaboration, accounting and payroll. In addition, the number of cloud services utilized by these midsizes companies will double in most countries during this time period.

The report found that those companies adopting the cloud will use an average of 3.3 managed IT services at the end of this three-year implementation period.

"Cloud adoption will be gradual, and [midsized companies] will continue to operate using a hybrid model with an increasing blend between off-premises and traditional on-premises infrastructure, for the foreseeable future," said Marco Limena, a vice president of business channels at Microsoft.

Recently, global research firm Gartner identified cloud services were worth $68 billion worldwide in 2010, a 16.6 percent increase from 2009.