Cloud adoption hits all-time high, Microsoft and Google dominate

With continued growth in use of Office 365 and G Suite, overall cloud adoption has hit an all-time high, according to Bitglass. Fifty-nine percent of organizations worldwide now use one of these two apps, up from 48 percent in 2015.

Slack is now among the fastest-growing enterprise cloud services, with at least some use in an estimated 33 percent of enterprises worldwide.

Using internally developed technologies, the Bitglass research team scanned cloud use of more than 120,000 companies to identify the primary cloud productivity suite used in each organization and whether key security technologies, such as single sign-on (SSO), are in use.

Bitglass found that Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google’s G Suite remain the most widely deployed cloud services in enterprises as they transition away from premises-based email and productivity applications. Office 365 continues to pull ahead of G Suite, and is deployed in more than one third (34.8 percent) of organizations while G Suite is used by 25 percent.

“Strong growth in the adoption of cloud applications is driving increased concern around data security,” said Nat Kausik, CEO, Bitglass. “While SaaS providers do an excellent job of securing infrastructure, securing corporate data remains the responsibility of the enterprise.”

Key findings

• Analysis of more than 120,000 domains indicates Office 365 is deployed in greater than one third (34.8 percent) of these organizations, while G Suite is used by 25 percent.
• An estimated 33 percent of enterprises worldwide have tried Slack, massive growth for an app that launched less than three years ago. This includes both sanctioned and unsanctioned use of the app.
• While mass adoption is still to come, SSO, considered the most basic cloud security function, is becoming more widely used. One in ten organizations now have some SSO solution deployed for their cloud apps.
• Office 365 users are among the most security conscious, with 26 percent of them now using SSO, up from 22 percent a year ago. SSO usage among G Suite customers is also on the rise and is now at six percent, up from four percent in 2015.
• Public companies favor Office 365 (48 percent) over G Suite (25 percent) nearly 2:1. Among private companies, the gap is not quite as wide, with 29 percent using O365 and 25 percent using G Suite.