A new infographic released by ComputerSupport.com shows that cloud adoption rates are on the rise, echoing predictions throughout the technology and business sectors over the past couple of years.

The infographic demonstrates that not only is the presence of cloud hosting increasing, but many people are enthusiastic enough about the cloud to recommend it to their peers. The infographic is based on a Microsoft study, which gauged cloud adoption rates among a wide range of organizations, found that the vast majority of organizations of all sizes use both Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and hosted infrastructure services. Both SaaS and hosted infrastructure services are currently being used most by organizations with less than 100 employees.

Government and Education leads in outsourcing, with more than 60% of organizations reporting participation. This sector is also more likely to utilize Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Small businesses lead in utilizing colocation services, which has slower adoption rates than other cloud segments.

Respondents were also asked about their eagerness to recommend cloud services to their peers. For most organizations, better service and lower costs were the top reasons to recommend cloud services to others. In fact, both large organizations and government were overwhelmingly in favor of the cost-saving benefits of cloud services.

The survey also explored the challenges businesses would face in the next couple of years. Cost control topped the list, with increasing profits coming in second. Security and competition ranked third. With cloud computing’s cost effectiveness ranking so high in the recommendations category, many businesses are likely to make the connection, realizing cloud adoption may be the solution they need to their economic concerns.

As cloud computing continues to drive technology in business, the relationship between cost, service, and adoption will likely be mentioned again. View the full study at http://tinyurl.com/mkw99hl